


The Secret Wars of Tevinter

by transdisneyprince



Series: The Tevinter Chronicles [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: All Transphobes Die, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Assassination Plot(s), Bisexual Krem, Blood and Violence, Canon Trans Character, Casual Sex, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Customized Class (Diviner), Drinking, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Gambling, Hearing Voices, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Original Character Death(s), Other, Own Voices Work, POV Cremisius "Krem" Aclassi, Polyamory, Revenge, Sexual Tension, Skyhold (Dragon Age), Slow Burn, Smoking psychedelics, Solas is Fen'Harel (Dragon Age), Swearing, Trans Issues, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:48:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 42,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24449836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transdisneyprince/pseuds/transdisneyprince
Summary: After a devastating blow is struck against the Inquisition, Krem must decide who and what is most important to him.
Relationships: Cremisius "Krem" Aclassi & Female Inquisitor, Cremisius "Krem" Aclassi/Dorian Pavus, Cremisius "Krem" Aclassi/Iron Bull, Cremisius "Krem" Aclassi/The Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Cremisius “Krem” Aclassi & Solas, Female Inquisitor & Solas, Female Inquisitor/Josephine Montilyet, Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus
Series: The Tevinter Chronicles [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765891
Kudos: 13





	1. Of A Prophecy Foretold

The world had changed.

That much was certain as Krem slowly opened his one, uncovered eye.

Draped in Tevinter’s ceremonial navy blue and scarlet red, Krem was perched on the throne in Skyhold’s main hall. He had one hand propping up his chin on the throne’s golden arm and the other firmly grasping a mage’s staff.

The top of Bull’s giant horned head was what first filled Krem’s line of sight. Genuflected before him, the Qunari was kissing the toe of his dragon-leather boot. And Krem nearly kicked Bull away in his haste to end whatever horrible situation he had found himself in.

When he glanced up, Krem saw a small army of heavily armored soldiers lined up in dozens of neat rows leading all the way down the hall. And flowing banners bearing the serpentine signet of the Tevinter Imperium hung from the walls.

“Silence!” shouted a familiar voice. And Krem spun to see that Dorian was standing at attention to his right. “The Magister-Inquisitor— Lord Cremisius Aclassi— demands silence!”

Krem’s blood ran cold as ice.

“ _Vishante kaffas..._ ” he gasped, not believing what was happening.

With a pained, rumbling groan, Bull slowly got to his feet. Beaten to a bloody pulp and stripped down to indecency, he had a sturdy magic collar clamped around his throat.

Krem cursed again and jumped to his feet, slowly shaking his head in disbelief.

“ _Bull..._ ” he choked out. “What have I done?”

“The Iron Bull is the only surviving member of the Old Inquisition,” Dorian announced as if Krem hadn’t even spoken. “Such is the glory of your conquest for the Tevinter Imperium.”

Those impossible words hung heavy in the space between them.

“The Old Inquisition?” Krem blurted out. “Dorian, this is all wrong! I never meant to—!”

A sharp pain suddenly drilled through Krem’s skull, and he let out a frightened shout. The staff in his hand grew warm with a dark power and its focus crackled with black electricity. Krem fought past the blinding pain, and when he opened his eye, he saw that the world’s color had gone to black-and-white.

And in Bull’s place stood Commander Jarok.

Before Krem could even react— with his battle ax drawn back and a twisted smile on his face— the Arishok attacked without warning.

* * *

A scream tore from Krem’s throat as he shot up in Bull’s bed. Trembling from head to toe in a cold sweat, he gasped for each panicked breath as he collected his bearings.

It was all just a horrible nightmare— the fourth one he’d had this week.

A hand suddenly touched Krem’s shoulder, and Krem instinctively tried to smack the hand away, but Dorian grabbed him by the wrist and held him still.

“It’s alright, Krem,” Dorian reassured him, his face bathed in soft candlelight. “It was another dream. You’re awake now.”

Krem covered Dorian’s hand with his own— holding on tight as if it would anchor him to reality. And he eventually calmed down enough for his heart to stop beating out of his chest.

“It’s getting worse,” Krem shakily said. “Dorian, I don’t know what to do.”

Dorian fiercely pulled Krem against his bare chest, and Krem tightly wrapped his arms around Dorian in return.

It was one week ago that Solas had fled Skyhold in the dead of night. One week ago that the Inquisitor had locked herself away in the war room and buried herself in her work. And to Krem, with nightmares haunting him at every turn, that one week had felt like an awful eternity.

“Where is he?” Krem asked in a rock salt rasp.

The Qunari-sized bed always felt cold and empty without Bull in it.

Dorian slowly raked his fingers through Krem’s hair and let out an exasperated sigh.

“Bull said that he had some work to do with the Inquisitor,” he responded. “For the third night in a row, might I add.”

Krem’s mind wandered to the Inquisitor; about how hard she had taken Solas’ leave from Skyhold. Krem had tried to convince her that Solas might come back, but his words had fallen on deaf ears. The Inquisitor wasn’t the type to wish on stars or pray for miracles. She knew a hard truth when she saw it, and it wasn’t in her nature to fight it.

“Before Solas left,” Krem said, “he tried to start training me in magic.”

Dorian considered that with a far-off look.

“Yes, he seemed very eager to cultivate the awakened powers within you and the Inquisitor,” he muttered. “Solas is very much like the Inquisitor in his fervent search for the truth.”

Krem agreed with Dorian about that, but something was still bothering him about it.

“The elves…” Krem hesitated. “They have a very different view of magic than what we were taught in Tevinter.”

Dorian gave a low, contemplative sound.

“Their history isn’t a kind one in many ways,” Dorian mused. “But I can sympathize with why you’re not nearly as enthused about unleashing a magical power that you scarcely understand. The last thing that we need right now is another Tevinter magister trying to take over the world.”

Krem winced at that remark and abruptly withdrew from Dorian to sit alone against the headrest. Dorian tried to hold on to him, but Krem muscled out of his grip. Truth be told, Krem was starting to feel very much like one of the _gaatlok_ barrels that had destroyed a good chunk of the ramparts several days ago.

A lit fuse ready to explode at any moment.

“Should I… turn myself in to the Circle?” he asked. “Would they even know what to do with me? Could they turn me into a tranquil even if they wanted to?”

Dorian looked troubled by that. And he slid a hand over Krem’s to give him both his distance and support.

“Bull and I won’t let anything bad happen to you,” Dorian said with full sincerity. “And I’ll make sure your newfound magic won’t get out of control.”

Krem’s hand tightened in Dorian’s, but he still looked away in shame.

“I already lost control of it,” he said. “I shocked the hell out of Bull, and I nearly killed us both.”

Dorian considered that and shifted to a sitting position on his knees.

“Give me your hands,” he said, reaching out with his palms up.

Krem gave Dorian a skeptical, sidelong look.

“Dorian, I don’t—“

“You won’t hurt me, Krem,” Dorian insisted. “I was studying magical theories and practicing magical applications back when you were still learning to speak.” Then he got a fiery look in his eyes that shone even brighter than the candlelight. “So let me help you.”

After several moments of deliberation, Krem shifted into a cross-legged position in front of Dorian. Then he hesitantly placed his hands on top of Dorian’s and took a deep, calming breath.

“We’ll start with the very basics of energy control,” Dorian said. “Pure magic is no different than any other form of energy. It’s just an energy that comes from inside you.”

Krem furrowed his brow in the dull candlelight as he tried to keep up with Dorian’s lecture.

“Now… I’m going to send some of my energy to you,” Dorian told him. “And I want you to send it back to me.”

Krem was taken aback.

“That doesn’t sound like an introductory lesson,” he admitted. “What if something goes wrong?”

“Then the magical energy will disperse harmlessly in your cells and you’ll feel a gentle, Dorian-esque tingle throughout your body,” he said. “Like I said, it’s just energy, Krem.”

Krem felt a little better after hearing that.

“Okay,” he conceded. “I’ll try it.”

Dorian nodded and closed his eyes. Then Krem screwed his own eye shut and forced his muscles to relax.

After maybe ten seconds, Krem felt a strange feeling growing at his fingertips. It wasn’t a warm feeling, or cold, or anything else that he had the vocabulary to describe. It was just a purely distilled essence of Dorian.

Krem eagerly accepted the energy into his body and it went up his arms like a fish swimming upstream. And when it reached Krem’s chest, he finally found the words to visualize it.

It was like the clear, bright shine of a diamond.

Krem sent energy back down his arms easily enough, and it disappeared back into Dorian. Krem hesitantly opened his eye and spotted a self-indulgent smirk on Dorian’s face before he opened his eyes as well.

A sudden wave of lightheadedness hit Krem, and he swooned. But Dorian caught him deftly by the shoulders and kept him steady. Then Krem let out an unexpected chuckle.

“Even doing just that…” Krem thought aloud. “It’s exhausting.”

“It’s no different than exercising any other part of your body,” Dorian explained to him. “If you hadn’t used your legs in almost three decades, trying to walk for the first time would seem just as formidable as magic.”

Krem let himself enjoy a brief sense of accomplishment. And then something exciting occurred to him.

“Your magic…” Krem said. “It felt like light reflected off of a diamond.”

Dorian smiled at that.

“It suits me, don’t you think?” he said with a wink.

Dorian’s enthusiasm was infectious, and an excited smile found its way across Krem’s face.

“Did you feel… _my_ magic?” he warily asked. “What did you feel when I sent it back to you?”

Dorian just gave him a knowing smile.

“Come on,” Krem laughed. “You have to tell me. I didn’t—“

But Dorian leaned forward and cut him off with a kiss. Krem happily kissed him back— once, twice, three times— and then Dorian withdrew and touched his forehead to Krem’s.

“Like a flash of gold,” Dorian said and pulled him into another kiss.


	2. Of Allegiances and Trust

Later that day, Bull decided to do some reconnaissance on the new recruits. It was the first day of Krem’s squad captain duties, and Bull’s former lieutenant was currently leading a small group of teenage recruits through practice drills in the lower courtyard.

A dozen strawman practice dummies had been lined up for the rookies to learn proper swordsmanship. And almost all of them had shown noticeable improvement.

Bull, meanwhile, leaned against a tall stone wall in the lower courtyard with his arms folded loosely over his chest. He was close enough to observe but far enough away to not be a distraction— to Krem or his conscripts.

Krem had been marching up and down the training line for two hours before he called for a water break. Several of the teens collapsed on the spot, and almost everyone else trudged towards a water keg off to the side. But one trainee in particular caught Bull’s attention.

An elven recruit— small and lanky even for an elf— made her way past Krem, but not before snatching the pouch on his belt. Krem had been in mid-holler to the other conscripts and was too distracted to realize he had been swindled.

But Bull had seen all of it. And he let out a low, irritated sound as he went to intercept the thief.

The headstrong rogue was chuckling to herself, still glancing over her shoulder as she ducked into a shady corner to count out her loot. But just as she reached into the stolen leather pouch, she recoiled with alarm.

“Shit!” she exclaimed and stuck a pricked thumb in her mouth. “Who keeps threading needles in a fucking coin purse?!”

“Someone who knows how to keep their real purse hidden from pickpockets,” Bull grumbled on approach.

The elf jumped back as she saw Bull blocking her only escape route, then she realized exactly what he had meant. She quickly overturned the pouch and nothing but a torrent of cheap needles poured out of it.

“Fucking shit...” she muttered. Then she redirected her frustration onto Bull. “What’s the big idea, ox? Don’t you have a trough to go drink from or something?”

“I’m too busy making sure the new recruits don’t fall on their own swords,” he dryly responded.

The elf rolled her dark eyes.

“I don’t want to swing around a stupid sword,” the girl said in a thick, Ferelden drawl. “I do my best work when no one notices me.”

Bull raised an eyebrow at her.

“I noticed you,” he pointed out. “Must not have been your best work.”

The elf narrowed her eyes at him.

“Obviously,” she scoffed, but her antagonism was slowly slipping away. “What do they call you, ox? Did the Inquisitor give you a pet name?”

The echoing sound of steel hitting steel signaled that Krem’s teaching had resumed, but Bull didn’t take his eye off of the thief that he had caught.

“They call me The Iron Bull,” he responded.

“ _The Iron Bull…!_ ” the elf exclaimed with mock admiration. “Was The Buccaneer Steer already taken?”

The girl tried to slip past Bull, but he grabbed her hard and fast. Then she let out a surprised shout as he bent her wrist back. A hidden dagger instantly fell out of her grip, harmlessly clattering into the dirt.

“Burlesque dancer from Treviso,” he said. “You’d be surprised how far down the list I had to go.”

The girl smirked at that.

“You aren’t half bad,” she admitted, “for a dumb, naked Qunari.”

But before Bull could respond, his sliced suspenders gave way and his parachute pants fell heavily to the ground.

“ _Too slow~_ ” she sang.

Even standing there in his jock strap, Bull wasn’t angry. If anything, he was suddenly very impressed by the elven thief.

“I think you’re right,” he said. “Your talents _are_ wasted with a sword. Have you ever heard of The Friends of Red Jenny?”

That made the girl’s eyes go wide.

“You mean the coolest criminal group this side of the Waking Sea?” she exclaimed. “They’re only my favorite mercenary group ever.”

And in that moment, Bull knew a certain flaxen-haired woman who would be more than happy to take this budding young talent under her wing.

“Your luck just got a whole lot better,” he said. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

* * *

After dismissing his troop from practice for the day, Krem showered and dropped into bed like a sack of potatoes to take a late-day nap.

And once he was thoroughly refreshed, he found his way back outside and spotted the Inquisitor loitering up on the ramparts. Feeling like a chat with his boss was long-overdue, he dutifully climbed the stone steps that led to her.

“Inquisitor,” he called out to her. “It’s good to see you out of your office.”

The Inquisitor was leaning against the rampart wall in her elven robe of green silks. And as he approached, her golden hair piece fetchingly caught the gentle glow of the setting sun.

The Inquisitor’s far-off look told Krem that she had needed some time to clear her mind. It seemed to Krem as if she was distracted by something. And he set out to get some answers.

“What is your favorite color, Krem?”

The random inquiry was the last thing that Krem was expecting, but he supposed it made sense that she would be worn out on matters of war and politics.

“Orange,” he casually responded and leaned against the rampart next to her. “The color of leaves in the cooler months; before the frost.”

The Inquisitor smiled at that. But Krem noticed that she still hadn’t looked away from the sprawling Orlesian landscape beyond the confines of Skyhold’s walls since he had arrived.

“The atrium is a lot more busy since Solas moved out of it,” he ventured. “Dorian was delighted when his library space was expanded.”

The Inquisitor stayed silent for several long moments, and knowing the Inquisitor fairly well, Krem waited patiently for her reaction.

“It’ll be far more difficult for you to destroy the bookcases on the lower floor,” she quipped, “without gravity to lend you its force.”

Krem shifted uncomfortably.

“I really should have mentioned that to you at some point,” he admitted. But then he realized he was being led by the nose away from the topic of Solas’ excursion.

If he weren’t so used to Bull using the same tactic, it probably would have worked.

“Inquisitor,” he gingerly said. “Do you know where Solas went?”

Krem caught the twinge of guilt as it passed across the Inquisitor’s face, and she slowly pushed a stray curl behind her ear.

“Nothing would make me happier than being reunited with him,” she said. “But he made it very clear that he was needed elsewhere.”

Krem’s brow furrowed in thought.

“Where else would he possibly go to do more good than he could in Skyhold?” he asked.

The Inquisitor finally looked up at him, and she gave him an amused, perceptive smile.

“A bold proclamation from someone who travelled across the world to do a whole lot of good not long ago,” she answered him.

Krem looked away. He was somehow emboldened and abashed in equal shares.

“You’re very good at taking conversations exactly where you want them,” Krem said.

The Inquisitor practically glowed at that. She flounced into a more informal position against the rampart wall and crossed her ankles behind her.

“Navigating dangerous conversations is a necessary tool of the trade,” she told him. “I didn’t get to where I am by accident.”

Krem’s gaze drifted to her hand.

“Some would disagree,” he muttered, innocuously.

The Inquisitor caught his meaning and clasped her small hands together.

“I may not have chosen to accept the anchor,” she said. “But I did choose to build the Inquisition.” She turned to him, and her turquoise eyes were bright with conviction. “I think that’s important. Don’t you agree?”

Krem considered her for a brief moment.

“I do,” he sincerely said. “Intent is important. And your intent has always been good.”

There was the distant sound of wagon wheels rumbling down the road, and it stole both of their attentions. An Inquisition caravan was trudging along with a hundred travellers in tow. And the Inquisitor lit up like a firework at the sight of it.

“They’ve arrived!” she exclaimed. “The passengers of _The Sunbeam_ have finally returned.”


	3. Of Beck and Call

The first cavalcade of Inquisition wagons brought much of The Sunbeam’s cargo along with those passengers that the Inquisitor had allotted priority travel back to Skyhold. It would be the first of three comparable caravans entering Skyhold in the upcoming days, and as if by magic, the Inquisition’s morale was instantly improved. The ones who had returned were all uninjured and in good health, and a large welcoming party had crowded in the lower courtyard to celebrate their return. 

Krem was helping unload crates of supplies from the wagons while the Inquisitor checked in on the head caravaneer. And just as he decided to take a break, Josephine approached him in a black cocktail dress. 

“Good evening, Krem,” she happily said. “It feels like we haven’t been able to catch up as of late.”

Krem hadn’t even noticed that the sun had set before Josephine mentioned it. His thoughts had been all over the place while he worked. 

“I hope you’ve been doing well,” he replied. “Are you going out on the town tonight?”

“With the Inquisitor, yes,” she joyfully said. “We’re having a dinner date in Val Royeaux.”

Krem nodded and took a seat on a nearby wooden crate. 

“It’s a beautiful night for it,” he remarked. “I’m sure you’ll have a great time.”

Krem was relieved to hear that things had finally stabilized between Josephine and the Inquisitor. He couldn’t imagine being romantically involved with the leader of a force like the Inquisition, and he admired Josephine for making it work. 

“It’s a little strange,” Josephine said as she fidgeted with a thin diamond bracelet on her wrist. “We’ve been going steady for weeks and my hands still shake when I’m on dates with her. And it’s not just because she’s the Inquisitor. It’s because it’s her. I’m afraid I’ll say the wrong thing and she’ll think that I’m foolish. And I’m just—“

Krem had stood up when Josephine started rambling and put his hands on her shoulders to calm her down. Then he gave her an encouraging smile when she looked up at him. 

“You’ll both have a great time,” Krem insisted. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Josephine.”

Josephine smiled back at him and brought him into a friendly hug. 

“Thank you, Krem.”

They walked together towards the Inquisitor’s private carriage where Cullen was waiting for them. The sweat on his brow suggested that the commander had been helping unload cargo from the caravan as well. 

“You're set to depart, Ambassador,” Cullen announced as he opened the carriage door. “I’ll be your escort this evening.”

Krem appreciated knowing that the Inquisitor and Josephine wouldn’t be on the road alone and unprotected. And their privacy would almost certainly be respected by Cullen once they were in the city. In fact, Cullen was the perfect choice for this job, and Krem was sure that the Inquisitor had arranged it that way. 

“Ah, good,” the Inquisitor quipped as she approached the three of them. “It would seem everyone is present and accounted for.”

At that, Krem hastened to the carriage door and both he and Cullen dutifully held their hands out to help the Inquisitor come aboard. The Inquisitor watched it all happen with an amused expression and took up Josephine’s hand instead. 

“At ease, gentlemen,” she teased them and hopped inside with Josephine right behind her. 

There was an awkward pause between Krem and Cullen as the carriage door snapped shut, and Krem broke the tension with a light chuckle. 

“I already feel like a third wheel,” Cullen confessed as he rubbed the nape of his neck. 

“You go wherever the Inquisitor needs you,” Krem encouraged him. “That’s what you said, isn’t it?”

Cullen let out a compromising sigh. 

“I suppose you’re right,” he said with a half-smile.

Then a large, familiar hand suddenly reached around Krem’s waist and he quickly turned to see that Bull had appeared beside him. 

“Hey, Cullen,” Bull said, barely sparing the time for niceties. “Mind if I take Krem off your hands?”

Cullen looked surprised at the request, and he couldn’t manage to hide the scandalized assumptions that flashed on his face. 

“Yes!” Cullen blurted out. “I mean, yeah, of course. Go right ahead, Krem. I need to get going anyway.” He backstepped, pointing towards the horse. “We’re… going to Val Royeaux, you know.”

Krem inwardly groaned.

“Yeah… see you later, Commander,” he said.

Cullen then mounted the draft horse at the front of the carriage and in no time the three of them were across the drawbridge and down the dirt road leading out of Skyhold. 

“There were already rumors about us _before_ I moved in with you,” Krem pointed out in a lowered voice. “It doesn’t take a lot for people to start gossiping around here.”

Bull just clapped him on the shoulder and headed towards the ramparts. 

“You’d be surprised what I could tell you about Cullen,” he said. “Come on. I have something to show you.”

Krem smiled despite himself and followed Bull up the stone steps. And to Krem’s surprise, he saw Sera and a girl from his squad waiting for them with a cache of fireworks. 

“Keerla,” he called out to the girl. “What are you doing here? You need to be resting up for training tomorrow.”

The girl didn’t even look up from the pile of firecrackers that she was sifting through alongside Sera. 

“Fat chance,” she told him. “I’m a Red Jenny now. No more sword-swinging and straw dummies for me.”

Krem held back a frustrated sound and propped his hands on his hips. 

“First the raven and now her?” Krem quipped. “You need to find your own recruits, Sera.”

Sera let out a nasally giggle at that. 

“Maybe you should treat your conscripts better,” she suggested. “Then they all wouldn’t come running to me at the end of the day.”

Bull suddenly, impatiently called out to him. And Krem automatically turned to face him. 

“What is it?” Krem asked him as he joined Bull against the rampart wall. “Do you want a rematch tomorrow or something?” 

Bull raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Rematch?” he scoffed. “ _I_ pinned _you_ , remember?”

“Only after _I_ pinned _you_ ,” Krem shot back. 

Bull made a dismissive sound and looked out onto the road to watch the Inquisitor’s carriage disappear into the night. 

“The tree limb did all the work,” he said. 

Krem punched him in the ribs with a laugh and Bull bumped him back with the side of his arm. Then the two of them ended up leaning against each other as the first firework shot up into the sky. It exploded above their heads in a rain of red light, and Krem stopped his roughhousing to admire it. 

“Happy name-day, Krem,” Bull said as he smoothly slipped his hand into Krem’s.

By that, Krem was struck with realization. He had been so distracted lately that he completely forgot that it was his name-day today. 

Krem was too out of sorts to give a response, so he squeezed Bull’s hand and watched another firework explode among the stars. 

“You actually talked Sera into stealing fireworks from the Inquisitor's stash?” he finally asked. 

“It didn’t take a lot of convincing,” Bull admitted with a shrug. 

The two of them settled into a comfortable silence, and Krem sneaked a glance at Bull’s chest. The handprint-shaped burn that Krem had left on him last week had almost entirely healed. Krem wouldn’t have even noticed it if he weren’t looking for it. But the ghostly-white scar still remained all the same. 

“Are you looking forward to your promotion?” Bull asked him. 

Krem shifted uneasily, taking his hand out of Bull’s and twiddling his thumbs in front of him. 

“I don’t know,” he muttered. “I guess so.”

Bull threw him a sideways glance. 

“Don’t sound too excited,” he joked. 

Krem realized he was bringing down the mood and shook his head to clear it. 

“I’m just…” he hesitated, “not a big fan of crowds, you know?” 

It was a harmless white lie, but Bull was persistent, and he took up Krem’s hand. 

“Then I’ll be there to help you through it,” Bull told him and softly kissed the top of Krem’s knuckles. “ _Knight-Captain_ Aclassi.”

Krem went red in the face as Bull withdrew from the kiss. And the memory of last night’s dream— Bull beaten into submission as he kneeled at Krem’s feet— made Krem yank his hand away from Bull. 

“Don’t call me that,” Krem snapped.

And Bull could only watch on with concern as Krem promptly turned on his heel and retreated down the rampart steps.


	4. Of Hitting the Books

Krem’s head was hung low as he returned to Skyhold’s throne hall. He knew that something was going to have to change. Everything that he had worked for and accomplished would be for nothing if he spent the rest of his life jumping at shadows.

Bull deserved better than that.

‘ _I need to keep working on my magic with Dorian_ ,’ he realized. ‘ _If I can control it then I’ll have nothing to fear_.’

As he passed tonight’s feast of gurn steak spread out on the long tables, Krem wondered just how far Dorian’s expertise could take him. Even with his encyclopedic knowledge of magic and its workings, Krem wasn’t sure if the kind of power that he and the Inquisitor now wielded was some kind of uncharted territory. But he figured that if anyone in Thedas could make heads or tails of it, Dorian could do it.

Now that he thought of it, Krem was still impressed by Dorian’s first lesson and just how well it went. Dorian made learning magical theory easy— even for someone like Krem. And Krem smiled while thinking back on it.

‘ _It felt great circulating magic between the two of us_ ,’ he distractedly thought. ‘ _His hands in mine... his soft lips—_ ’

Krem stopped in his tracks.

‘ _Wait…_ ’ he recoiled. ‘ _Did I just get stuck in a daydream about Dorian’s_ soft lips?!’

Krem ran a hand down his tired face.

“I really must be out of it today…” he mumbled to himself and made his way towards the atrium.

* * *

The lower floor of the library— what used to be Solas’ designated space in the hold— was practically vacant this late at night. Dorian was the only one standing in front of a bookshelf with a thick tome in his hand. And when Krem approached him, he was surprised to see that it was a book on necromancy.

“You could always read Varric’s horror stories if you want to be kept up at night,” Krem told him. “ _The Haunting of the Queen_ isn’t half bad.”

A smirk played on Dorian’s face and Krem tried not to focus on the bow-like shape of his mouth.

“I’ve read _The Haunting_ series,” Dorian remarked. “All thirteen installments of it.”

“I’m only on book seven,” Krem responded. “Don’t spoil it for me.”

Dorian let out a mischievous chuckle.

“I strongly suggest that you stay in my good graces, then,” he said.

Krem was overtaken with the idea of kissing him up against the bookcase.

“Are dead things really that interesting?” he said, pushing the thought aside. “Or are fireballs just too pedestrian for you?”

Dorian didn’t answer at first, and Krem was surprised by his hesitation.

“One dead thing in particular has piqued my interest,” he said, suddenly very serious. “But while going through this book I reached a passage in elven with no attached footnotes or translation. And I’m ashamed to say that I’m only bilingual.”

Krem shuffled beside him and clearly saw the page that Dorian was referencing.

“Well, damn,” he said. “Maybe you could commission a transcript from someone in Skyhold.”

But then an odd realization struck Krem, and it made him reconsider his advice.

“Or maybe…” he muttered. “ _I_ could translate it for you.”

Dorian raised an unconvinced eyebrow at him.

“If you were fluent in elven, surely I would have known about it by now,” he scoffed.

Krem suddenly got an uneasy feeling in his stomach.

“I’m not sure ‘fluent’ is the right word for it,” Krem gruffly said, but Dorian still handed the giant book over to him.

‘ _Hey, voice..._ ’ Krem warily called out in his head. ‘ _Do you think you could help me read this like you did the Inquisitor’s journal in the hallway?_ ’

At first there was no response, and Dorian crossed his arms with obvious skepticism at Krem’s strange behavior.

Then the voice returned— dripping with consummation.

_Certainly._

Krem instantly sensed his mind shift to another plane of existence, like a stone being catapulted from a sling. The world around him went black, and the words— now etched in white light on the page— were completely legible. He gripped at the book as if gravity itself would fail him without it. The entirety of The Fade filled the space between himself and the text.

It felt like standing on the edge of the world.

Krem willed himself to keep it together— just long enough to read the text for Dorian.

_The soul of the soil is what separates us from the great beyond. The beautiful desecration of death is only a breath away from reality. Take that breath and hold it tightly in your chest. The spirit of the grave will catch you in its teeth before—_

_Cremisius._

The voice of a friend that Krem thought he had lost forever interrupted him. And Krem instinctively narrowed in on it.

‘ _Solas?_ ’ he reached out with his mind. ‘ _Is that you?_ ’

The Fade sped by him in a blur, and Krem could suddenly see Solas’ back facing him on the distant horizon. He was traveling up a mountain path— just a speck in the distance. But Krem knew for sure that it was him.

‘ _Solas!_ ’ Krem tried again. ‘ _Solas, wait! I—_ ’

**Smack!**

Krem was thrown out of his vision as Dorian’s hand struck the side of his face. He stumbled backwards, but Dorian was there to steady him. With his hands on his shoulders, Dorian vigorously shook Krem back to his wits.

“Krem!” Dorian worriedly exclaimed. “What the hell did you just do?!”

Krem couldn’t find his voice. The slap had been hard enough to make his ears ring.

“I was… _trying_ … to help you,” he croaked.

“You were speaking in another voice!” Dorian shouted at him. “It sounded _demonic_! You—!”

But before he could finish, Krem’s knees buckled. His body went heavy as iron and crumpled to the floor. Dorian went down with him and kept him from falling over as best he could.

Then that terrible, disembodied voice came back to him:

_Find an eluvian and it will guide you._

It was the only persuasion that Krem needed.

“I—“ Krem blurted out. “I have to go.”

Krem pushed Dorian away with what strength he could muster and stumbled out of the atrium.

”Krem, no!” Dorian insisted. “This isn’t normal! It isn’t safe!”

Dorian tried to give chase, but the voice pointed Krem in the right direction.

_Go to the hallway._

Krem didn’t need to be told which hallway. He ducked down the hall where he had read the Inquisitor’s diary, and the voice led him further into the dark, abandoned recesses of Skyhold. After several labyrinthine turns, Krem had successfully eluded Dorian. And he finally found himself in a dimly lit corridor with a tall tarp hanging in front of him like a ghost.

Krem’s legs were trembling. He was still shaken up from his projection into The Fade. But this may be the only lead he’d ever get surrounding Solas’ whereabouts. He couldn’t let it slip away without a fight.

” _Please..._ ” Krem pleaded with the otherworldly voice. “Take me to him.”

Reaching forward, Krem grabbed the tarp in his fist and tugged it in one fierce motion. The heavy cloth fell away, revealing a towering, pristine eluvian. And Krem didn’t think twice before stepping headlong into it.


	5. Of Souls at a Crossroads

Krem’s vitality returned to him in full as he exited the eluvian. The mountainous, rocky landscape that he found himself in was completely foreign to him. And the extremely high elevation was at odds with the constant stillness of the air around him. All at once, it occurred to Krem that this place somehow seemed to exist outside the bounds of both The Fade and the mortal realm. 

Krem’s boots crunched on the hard, loose soil as he crossed a hilly expanse in search of Solas. Part of him wanted to call out his name, but something deep inside held him back. It was as if this domain all but demanded his respect, and his spirit couldn’t act against it even if his mind wanted it to. 

Krem wanted to beseech Andraste for guidance, but his devout tongue was silenced, and the words died in his throat. 

_Andraste has no power here,_ da‘len. 

The otherworldly voice left no room for doubt. 

“Where am I?” Krem asked the empty space around him as he continued to trek forward. 

Krem’s legs brought him to a formidable statue on the edge of the path. A large, stone wolf rested on a simple podium and looked down at him as a parent would look at their own child. And Krem couldn’t bring himself to turn away from the wolf’s enthralling gaze. 

“ _Fen’harel_ ,” he heard himself say. “The Dread Wolf.” Then everything fell into place. “You’re the one who’s been speaking to me… and the Inquisitor.” Then he reached up and reverently touched _Fen’harel’s_ stone pedestal. “What do you want from us?”

“My friend.”

Krem spun on the spot and saw Solas standing several paces away with his hands neatly folded behind his back. Solas was wearing new clothes that harkened back to Elven fashion, but somehow transcended it entirely. A large fur mink was draped around his neck and a form-fitting outfit covered him from head-to-toe. Krem couldn’t identify the material of it even with his expert tailoring experience. The entire situation was throwing him for quite a loop. 

“Solas,” Krem gasped, desperately trying to make sense of everything. “Did _Fen’harel_ bring you here, too?”

As Solas slowly approached him, Krem could see an amused expression on his face. 

“I brought you here, Cremisius,” Solas told him. “Solas and _Fen’harel_ are one and the same.”

Krem felt like he had been slapped in the face for the second time today. He moved to meet Solas in an open clearing at the foot of a tall hill. A dozen eluvians bordered the area like silent gargoyles watching over a chantry. And somehow, to Krem, none of it felt out of place. 

“You’re… the Dread Wolf?” Krem said. The statement felt awkward on his tongue. “That’s... not possible.”

“You know it to be true,” Solas simply told him, closing the distance between them to arm’s length. “Your spirit knows it.”

_I am your spiritual patron._

The Dread Wolf spoke directly to Krem’s spirit. It made Krem dizzy with disbelief. 

“But _Fen’harel_ is an Elven god,” Krem said, shaking his head. “Why would it choose a human like me to—?”

“You still have a very long way to go,” Solas told him. “There is still very much for you to learn.”

Krem took a frustrated huff of a breath and furled his hands into fists at his sides. 

“Solas, this is madness!” Krem shouted. “You tried to make me come with you that night back in Skyhold. So why did you abandon the Inquisitor? She needs you, Solas! She misses you terribly!” 

There was a horrible look of grief in Solas’ eyes. 

“I understand your confusion,” Solas calmly said. “And your anger. But it has to be this way. I wanted you to come with me willingly, but now I see it was for the best that you didn’t.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Krem challenged him. “I came here through an eluvian. You can go back to Skyhold just like walking through a door! I’ll…” Krem mustered his nerve. “I’ll bring you back to her.”

Krem stepped forward, and before his foot could hit the ground, Solas’ eyes glowed yellow. Krem froze in place— every bone and muscle in his body refused to move an inch. 

“ _We will meet again, my friend_.”

Solas and the Dread Wolf spoke together. Their shared voice echoed like thunder in the valley, and Krem could only watch on as Solas pointed his staff at him. 

An invisible force suddenly threw Krem off his feet and back through the air at a remarkable speed. He screamed out Solas’ name in anger as he tumbled through a nearby eluvian. Then he collided back-first against Bull’s chest, hard enough to knock the wind from him. Both of Bull’s arms were around him in an instant, and Krem shot open his eye to see the Inquisitor standing next to the eluvian in Skyhold with a furious look on her face. 

The Inquisitor swung back her iron-plated bow with a shout, and Krem helplessly struggled against Bull’s vice-like grip. 

“Inquisitor, _no_!” he screamed. 

But it was too late. The Inquisitor’s bow crashed against the eluvian with a horrible sound, and the ancient glass of the destroyed elven artifact fell to the ground in a thousand pieces. And the room was taken over by the long, awful silence that followed. 

“Now no one else can leave.” 

The Inquisitor’s voice was so small and broken— just like the fractals of her people’s history that now littered the floor. 

“Inquisitor,” Krem breathed. “I—“

“Take him, Bull,” she interrupted Krem, her voice devoid of emotion. “Please… just go.”

Bull didn’t need to be told twice. He held Krem against him as he made for the door, and Krem felt his heart break as the Inquisitor fell to her knees and buried her face in her hands.


	6. Of Passing With Flying Colors

Krem was in a daze as he was dragged back to Bull and Dorian’s shared living space. Dorian and Josephine were fretting together— no doubt told to stay put by their loved ones— and Bull quietly told Josephine where to find the Inquisitor. Josephine thanked Bull and promptly rushed out of the room. 

And when Krem glanced up at Bull, he saw that his former mentor looked just as overwhelmed by the situation as Krem felt. 

“You two had better start explaining yourselves,” Dorian demanded in a heated fit of rage. “What the _hell_ has been going on here?”

Krem rarely saw Dorian get mad, and this was well beyond that.

“It’s Solas,” Krem sighed, not wanting to perpetuate the lies anymore. “Solas is _Fen’harel_.”

Just saying that lifted a huge weight off of Krem’s aching shoulders. But when he looked up, he saw Dorian and Bull staring back at him as if he had grown a second head. 

“I’m not in the mood for jokes, Krem,” Dorian said, his voice tight with anger. “This isn’t—“

“I’m not joking,” Krem firmly interjected. “Solas—“ Krem let out a frustrated sound. He felt like he was being put under pressure to solve a puzzle very quickly with only half the pieces. “He’s the one who made me into a mage. It’s Solas’ magic— the Dread Wolf’s magic— that I’ve been using for the past couple weeks, not my own.”

The room went very quiet as Dorian and Bull processed that information. 

“Krem, I felt your magic,” Dorian told him in a level voice. “That was you that I felt. Not Solas. Not _Fen’harel_. _You_.”

“Well, you were duped,” Krem said, throwing his hands up in irritation. “We were all duped. I don’t even know how much the Inquisitor knows about it. But it’s probably a lot more than us.”

‘ _The Inquisitor_.’

Krem felt his heart drop like a stone. Had she destroyed an eluvian just to keep him from leaving again with Solas at some point in the future? What could have driven her to break a priceless Elven artifact like that?

‘ _Was it because she felt betrayed_?’ Krem grimly wondered. ‘ _Is it all my fault_?’

Krem tried to push those thoughts aside for now, and Dorian still looked decidedly unconvinced. 

“You’re being uncharacteristically acquiescent, Bull,” Dorian remarked. “Is there anything you’re not telling us?”

“Of course there is,” Krem sarcastically muttered. “It’s _Bull_.”

But Bull’s expression was full of uncertainty. It was as if he didn’t want to believe the facts that were staring him right in the face. 

“This complicates things,” he simply said. 

“Yeah,” Krem scoffed. “No shit.”

“More than you realize,” Bull countered. 

“Enlighten us, then,” Dorian pushed back. 

Bull’s expression went stormy. 

“The Inquisitor— the most powerful political force in Thedas— is harboring an Elven trickster god in her spirit and is willingly acting as a conduit to his magic,” Bull stated. “Is that not complicated enough for you?”

Dorian and Krem went quiet. 

“I’m not going to be a conduit for anything,” Krem said. “And neither is the Inquisitor.”

“It won’t be as simple as that,” Bull said. 

“And why not?” Krem shot back.

Bull finally reached the end of his rope and brandished his arms in an exasperated way. 

“ELVEN. TRICKSTER. GOD.”

Dorian finally opted to move between the two of them to help keep the peace. 

“Okay, that’s quite enough of that,” he tutted. “Krem isn’t a focus at the end of Solas’ staff, Bull. And he certainly isn’t some puppet on strings at the mercy of _Fen’harel_.”

“I can control it,” Krem persisted. “Just give me a chance, Bull. Don’t you trust me at all?”

“I don’t trust anyone who has The Dread Wolf whispering in their ear,” Bull grunted. 

Krem was caught off guard by how much hearing that hurt, and it showed. 

“You think I’d attack you just because some stupid god told me to do it?” Krem asked. 

“Is that not what this was?” Bull said, pointing at the handprint scar on his chest. 

“No!” Krem exclaimed. “It was an accident!”

“Then prove it,” Bull asserted. “Show me that you’re in control of it.”

Krem scowled. 

“Fine,” he muttered. “I will.”

If Bull couldn’t trust Krem, then maybe he would trust Dorian and his genius-level expertise of magic and its workings. 

“Tell me what to do with my magic, Dorian,” Krem irreverently said. “Preferably something that won’t put me in a coma.”

Dorian scratched his chin for a moment, and then Krem saw an idea light up on his face. 

“Sit with me,” he instructed and took Krem’s hand. “I think I know just the thing.”

Bull carefully watched on as Dorian and Krem sat together on the side of his giant bed. Dorian closed Krem’s fingers around his wrist and touched the side of Krem’s face with his free hand. It calmed Krem down and urged him on all at once, and he couldn’t manage to temper the excitement that bubbled up in him. 

“Focus on me, Krem,” Dorian said in a gentle voice. “Can you do that for me?”

Krem entertained the notion of pushing him down on the bed and climbing on top of him. 

“Whatever you say,” Krem said with a smirk. 

There was a twinkle in Dorian’s blue eyes and he gradually settled into a meditative calm. So Krem tried his best to follow the leader and clear his mind of distractions. 

“Your next lesson is transforming your energy into electricity,” Dorian said. “That seems to be your true magical nature so that’s where we’ll begin.”

Krem’s eye shot open at that. 

“Wait, what?” he said with uncertainty. “Here? Now?”

“Trust me, Krem,” Dorian answered with a soothing tone of voice. “It won’t be a large discharge.”

Bull let out an unintentional snicker and Dorian shot him a sidelong look. 

“—of _electricity_ ,” he amended. “Just a small static shock to prove my point.”

Krem didn’t protest. He couldn’t very well just give up on developing his magic now. And Dorian was right— they had a point to make to Bull. So Krem closed his eye and waited for instructions. 

“Now, reach into your spirit,” Dorian told him. “Transform your energy into power.”

Krem’s brow furrowed as he searched deep inside himself. He took special care not to invoke _Fen’harel_ , and indeed, the godly voice remained silent in his mind. 

“Imagine you’re opening a door,” Dorian continued. “Just a gentle push.”

Krem sensed that familiar power rising to the surface, and he reminded himself to not get carried away with it. 

The dark electricity crackled on his skin, and it followed the path of least resistance. Tiny sparks danced up Dorian’s arm and caused the hairs that they touched to stand on end. Krem felt Dorian’s grip tighten on his own arm, and he cut off the charge in alarm. But when he opened his eye, Dorian was smiling back at him. 

“You did it,” Dorian congratulated him. “You controlled your magic, Krem.”

Then Dorian tugged Krem’s arm and brought him into a hard kiss. Krem gave a startled, muffled noise but quickly broke out into a smile against Dorian’s mouth. Krem started to lift Dorian’s chin to deepen the kiss, but Dorian pulled away far too soon. And when Krem opened his eye, he saw Dorian give Bull a cheeky wink. 

“I think that’s enough for tonight,” Dorian chirped. “Perhaps something a little more _advanced_ tomorrow.”

Krem watched Bull roll his eye with an annoyed grunt and storm off into the kitchen.


	7. Of a Brave New World

Krem was finally getting into the swing of his squad captain duties, and it provided a much-needed pick-me-up after what had happened inside the eluvian. His recruits were starting to nail the basics without hardly any oversight, but it did very little to overshadow his blundering from yesterday.

After returning his training irons to the armory, he trudged back to Bull’s place. And he got an uneasy feeling as a strong smell of beer greeted him as he walked through the door.

Treading lightly, Krem made his way to the bedroom and saw Bull sitting at his writing desk with his back to the door. Crumpled parchment and empty beer bottles were Bull’s only company, and he muttered angrily to himself as he worked by candlelight.

Krem desperately wanted to go check up on him, but before he could make his presence known, he finally caught something that Bull said:

“ _May the dread wolf take you_.”

Each word dripped with profane mockery.

Bull then hoisted an empty bottle by the neck and threw it into the roaring fireplace with an awful crash, and Krem flinched back into cover behind the bedroom door. Not wanting to test Bull’s patience, he hurried back to the kitchen and found Dorian preparing a bowl of sliced fruit.

Dorian was humming a familiar Tevinter tune as he worked, and hearing it did wonders to keep Krem’s anxiety from overwhelming him. Krem’s feet automatically brought him over to Dorian— like a sailor being bewitched by a siren at sea— and he silently hugged Dorian from behind.

Dorian kept tap-tap-tapping the blade of his knife against the cutting board but his humming suddenly stopped. Krem brushed Dorian’s temple with a kiss— just a fleeting, easy gesture— and rested his forehead on Dorian’s shoulder.

“Don’t stop,” Krem said quietly.

There was a pause during which even Dorian’s knife went still, and then the soft humming returned.

Krem let the sweet harmony of the song and the knifefalls chase his worries away as he held Dorian around the waist. It was like finding reprieve in the eye of a gargantuan storm. But then there was a knock at the front door.

Krem took in a deep, tenacious breath, and then let it out with a sigh.

“We can pretend like no one is home,” Dorian offered, picking up on his irritation.

“No, it’s alright,” Krem grumbled. “I’ll get it.”

Krem went to the foyer, and when he opened the front door, Josephine was standing alone on the other side of it.

“Good evening, Krem,” she announced, but her smile slipped when she got a good look at him. “Did I… wake you?”

Krem hadn’t bothered to wash up after training his recruits and realized that he probably looked just as exhausted as he felt.

“No, it’s fine,” he said, forcing his enthusiasm to show itself. “It's good to see you. Did you have a good time in Val Royeaux?”

Josephine gave a small, hesitant nod.

“Yes, but…” Josephine’s voice trailed and her chin slowly fell. “The Inquisitor was quite upset once we got back to Skyhold. I wish I could have done more to comfort her, but…”

“Is she doing alright?” Krem quickly asked. “I mean, is she still—“

“She wants to speak with you,” Josephine replied, side-stepping his question, “ _in person_.”

Krem set his jaw but nodded all the same.

“Let me tell Dorian where I’ll be and then I’ll go with you,” he said.

Krem ducked back inside and saw that Dorian was waiting for him behind the door.

“I couldn’t help but overhear,” he remarked. “Go ahead and speak with the Inquisitor. I can handle things around here while you’re gone.”

There was another crash of glass from two rooms over and Krem felt his stomach clench.

“Are you sure?” he asked Dorian. “He seems… kind of frustrated.”

Dorian gave him a reassuring smile.

“And I know just the thing for it,” he responded in a mischievous way. “Go make things right with the Inquisitor and I’ll go take care of Bull.”

Krem smiled back at him.

“I will,” he promised. “Thanks, Dorian.”

* * *

As Josephine led Krem to the war room, Krem hoped that he would be able to speak past the lump of guilt in his throat.

The oak door was pushed open and Krem saw that the Inquisitor was busy inspecting a map of Thedas that was suspended on the far wall. She turned to look at him almost immediately, and instinctively, Krem bowed deeply at the waist.

“Inquisitor,” he implored. “I want to offer my—“

But the space between them was swallowed up before he could get the words out, and the Inquisitor brought him into a full hug. Krem felt his breath leave him from shock. The Inquisitor’s tiny fingers gripped the back of his undershirt as she held him tight.

“Don’t scare me like that ever again,” she said in a trembling voice.

Krem did his best to blink away his confusion as he wrapped his arms around her.

“I’m sorry…” he told her. “I won’t.”

The Inquisitor pulled away from him and hastily swiped the tears away from her blue-green eyes.

“I knew that if you could be lured away from Skyhold so easily, then I wouldn’t be far behind,” she professed, all in one breath. “I did what I had to do. You understand that, right?”

Krem turned to look at Josephine who was holding her clipboard tightly to her chest. She gave him an encouraging nod.

“I think so,” he told the Inquisitor. “I’m just sorry that it came at such a high cost.”

The Inquisitor let out a weak laugh.

“Skyhold will survive without an eluvian,” she replied. “ _Skyhold’s survival_ — that’s all that matters for now.”

Krem supportively held the Inquisitor’s hands between them and thanked his lucky stars. He had no idea that the Inquisitor had been grappling with the temptation of going after Solas. But Krem was certain that the Inquisition would be brought to its knees in her absence— in a matter of months, if not weeks— and it was obvious that she knew it, too.

Then something that the Inquisitor had said in Val Royeaux came back to him:

“ _I need to be bigger than myself_ ,” she had said. “ _To make the right decisions and not just the easy ones_.”

Krem hoped that he would be able to live up to those standards as well.

“We have something special to give you,” Josephine chimed in and gestured to an outfit hanging on the wall.

It was Krem’s commissioned knight-captain uniform. He reached for the red coat, admiring its make and style. It had golden silk trappings across the chest and matching gold buttons on the sleeve. It would go well with the Inquisitor’s trademark green, and he smiled at the thought.

“It’s incredible,” he admitted.

“There’s one more thing,” Josephine said, and handed him Hawke’s short sword. “The Inquisitor brought this back with her after she revisited The Sunbeam some time ago. Garrett Hawke wanted you to have it.”

Krem took up the familiar sidearm and felt a warm happiness growing inside him.

“I can’t wait to see how it looks on you,” the Inquisitor exclaimed. “But first, let me show you what I’ve been working on.”

The Inquisitor brought him to the giant map that hung on the wall, and a complicated picture came into focus. Several small red and blue pins were tacked up across the land, but it was three large, golden pins that caught Krem’s attention.

One in Kirkwall.

One in Halamshiral.

And one in Minrathous.

“This is where it all begins,” the Inquisitor said. “This is why I need you here, Krem.”

Krem couldn’t look away from the pinhead stuck straight into the heart of the Tevinter capital.

“I don’t understand,” he responded.

The Inquisitor touched her chin as she collected her thoughts.

“Leliana has uncovered a cult that’s responsible for tipping the scales of magical power across Thedas,” she explained. “Harbringers, diviners, oracles… Whatever term you care to use, they are being suppressed through violence and slavery. And I’m going to put an end to it.”

“Diviners?” Krem asked her. “Who are you talking about? You mean the mages?”

“Yes and no,” Josephine said as she joined them at the wall. “Your magic is different, Krem. You and the Inquisitor aren’t like normal mages.”

“Our powers come straight from the gods,” the Inquisitor said with conviction. “And that scares a lot of people in high places.”

Josephine pointed to each of the golden pins.

“Viscount Dumar in the Free Marches,” she listed off. “Grand Duchess Florianne de Chalons in Orlais. And Archon Radonis in the Tevinter Imperium. They’re all high-ranking members in the cult that has corrupted your magic and the magic of many others like you.”

Krem could barely keep up with everything that was being said.

“Archon Radonis?” he blurted out. “You mean he—?”

“Perhaps not directly,” the Inquisitor said. “But yes, he helped orchestrate the effort to turn diviners like us into non-mages— or soporati, as you call them. His position of power as a magister relied on the status quo in Tevinter being kept intact. And so the cult provided him with the means to suppress his own people.”

Krem furrowed his brow in thought.

“And Solas…” he muttered.

“ _Fen’harel_ ,” the Inquisitor corrected him. “He feels as if his children were stolen from him.”

Krem gave a nervous, dubious chuckle.

“This is crazy,” he said with a huff.

“I know,” the Inquisitor agreed. “It’s a lot that I’m asking you to take on faith.”

“No, I believe you,” Krem said without hesitation. “It’s just… a lot.”

“Here,” Josephine told him as she brought a tray of rich chocolate croissants dipped in honey. “It’s not much, but maybe a snack will help you.”

Krem thanked Josephine, gratefully taking a croissant from the tray. And the Inquisitor nabbed one as well.

“Inquisitor,” he thoughtfully said through a mouthful of chocolate and honey. “I know that all of this can’t be for nothing. You’re planning on doing something that’ll change the entire world, aren’t you?”

A sly grin spread across the Inquisitor’s face.

“Yes,” she said, excitedly. “If we play our cards right, we’ll be able to restore a kind of magic to the world that hasn’t been seen in ages.” Then she turned to Krem. “We can do it together.”

‘ _The Inquisitor is talking about confronting world leaders_ ,’ Krem realized. _’And with the level of political clout that she’s gained over the years, she could actually inspire some real, positive change.’_

It both excited and frightened him.

“They had no right to steal what they did from us,” the Inquisitor said, sensing his hesitation. “All we’ll be doing is taking back what’s ours. And it _is_ ours, Krem. _Fen’harel_ vested his magic to us. And once we find and break the source of the corruption, we’ll get to choose how to use it.”

“What about the Dalish?” Krem asked. “Surely none of the leaders that you’ve targeted are responsible for the Dalish diviners losing their magic. Who was it that was responsible for corrupting _your_ spirit, Inquisitor?”

“We aren’t certain yet,” Josephine told him. “Leliana is still doing her spy work out in Ferelden to find more cult members and corrupted diviners. Honestly, it seems like we’ve barely even scratched the surface on this thing.”

“This is what I’m meant to do,” the Inquisitor said, stalwart in her conviction. “I can’t let this injustice go on now that I’ve uncovered it.”

Krem considered that with a heavy heart.

“Justice…” he repeated in a lowered voice. “I think I can get behind that.”

“We’ll take it one step at a time,” Josephine reassured him. “And we’ll help whoever needs it along the way.”

Krem felt the world shifting under his feet. This wouldn’t be a horrible power unleashed on the world. It was a goal of justice and restoration.

The Inquisitor would lead them to it.

“I want to help you help the world, Inquisitor,” he finally agreed. “We’ll do it together.”


	8. Of the Eleventh Hour

Krem spoke at length with Josephine and the Inquisitor about what life at Skyhold would be like going forward. The Inquisitor pointed out that his accolade ceremony would be held in just a few days, and Krem used the opportunity to float his idea of turning it into a masquerade party. Josephine was thrilled by his suggestion, and so the Inquisitor easily agreed to it.

Then the Inquisitor provided him with some expensive fabrics and spent the early morning hours making decorative masks in the war room with Krem and Josephine. They laughed and created their masks together with the troubles of the world around them completely forgotten.

Josephine eventually held up her finished silk mask to her face— yellow and black with plenty of ribbons to frame and embellish it— and the Inquisitor kissed her playfully on the cheek.

Once Krem and the Inquisitor were done with their masks, Krem changed into his knight-captain uniform and the three of them moved their revelry into the throne room. They danced and spun together in the open space, and after a time a few other members of the Inquisition played fiddles and flutes to provide music. And as time wore on, Krem rested his feet with a warm mug of ale while the Inquisitor and Josephine continued to joyfully twirl in each other’s arms.

It was a rare, wonderful night for Krem.

* * *

Krem spent the next day riding a wave of good feelings and high hopes. He wore his knight-captain uniform instead of his irons to practice and was starting to feel comfortable while wearing it.

While he was teaching his young recruits how to parry, two women in fighting leathers giggled and waved as they passed his training area. It bolstered him into a flattered smile. And any reservations that Krem had about his promotion at Skyhold were forgotten as he made his way back to Bull’s place to wash up.

After a long, indulgent shower, Krem put his knight captain’s outfit back on and went into their shared bedroom to find Dorian working at Bull’s writing desk. He was humming that familiar song again, and Krem was snagged by it like a fish on a hook.

“Working hard?” Krem asked as he put his hands on Dorian’s shoulders.

“Not as hard as I was last night,” Dorian answered with a smirk.

Krem’s fingers began working the muscles in Dorian’s shoulders, and Dorian made an unintentional, obscene sound.

“Don’t let me distract you,” Krem teased, digging his thumbs in tight circles on Dorian’s back.

Dorian moaned again— low and vulgar— his work forgotten.

“Keep making noises like that and I might have to do something about it,” Krem said.

Krem leaned in to put his mouth on Dorian’s bare throat when the bedroom door suddenly swung open. Bull filled the door frame with a crude glint in his eye, and Krem detached himself from Dorian with awkward quickness. Krem knew this kind of thing shouldn’t be weird anymore, but he still felt a blush cross his face.

“It’s been so long since we travelled on the road,” Bull said with a lilt in his voice, “it’s a small wonder you remembered how to _pitch a tent_.”

Krem blushed even harder at that.

“Shut up,” he muttered, but he couldn’t keep a smile from spreading across his face.

“The words in my book are starting to string together,” Dorian said. “Why don’t we go celebrate Krem’s promotion at the tavern?”

“ _That’ll_ make your vision clearer,” Bull sarcastically said.

“Yeah, I could go for a beer,” Krem piped up. “Let me grab some money and I’ll pay for our tab.”

Krem went into the bottom drawer of their dresser to find his stash of gold, and he caught Bull checking him out from behind as he led Dorian to the door.

* * *

Krem was very comfortably drunk after wasting two hours with Bull and Dorian. The tavern was moderately busy as the night dragged on, and a group of Inquisition sailors had started a spirited sea shanty from across the room.

“You’ll like them once you get to know them,” Krem said as he leaned back in his chair at the tavern. His ale sloshed out of his mug and barely missed his new jacket. “Fenris has these kickass lyrium tattoos. And the Champion doesn’t even _need_ a fucking introduction.”

“Lyrium tattoos?” Dorian asked, still very much sober. “I’m sure there’s a story behind that.”

“I’d rather hear about that pirate captain,” Bull remarked, his feet kicked up on the table as he drank from his mug. “She sounds like a woman who can get shit done.”

“She reminded me a lot of you, Bull,” Krem admitted. “Tough as nails and a super sharp wit. I really hope you’ll get to meet her some day.”

A raven-haired barmaid in a stylish notch collar bodice refilled their drinks and her level gaze lingered on Krem.

“Hey, are you the Inquisitor’s new knight-captain?” she asked him.

Krem felt a huge grin break out over his chin.

“Why, yes!” he said entirely louder than necessary. “Yes, I am.”

Dorian rolled his eyes so hard that they very nearly fell out of his skull.

“Only heard of the Inquisitor having one knight-captain,” the barmaid responded in a Ferelden drawl, completely ignoring Krem’s enthusiasm as she topped off Bull’s mug. “You must be pretty good.”

“Yeah, well,” Krem drunkenly shrugged. “I can be pretty bad when the times call for it.”

The barmaid looked decidedly unimpressed.

“Well, we all make mistakes,” she coolly said and left the table.

Bull instantly erupted into boisterous laughter and even Dorian chuckled as Krem planted his forehead on the table in defeat.

“Shot down,” Dorian noted with a smirk.

“Wait here,” Bull waved him off. “I’ll find someone who _isn’t_ exclusively attracted to women.”

Bull left the table and Dorian crossed his arms in a disapproving way over his chest.

“I’ve tried to forget that he’s slept with almost everyone who works here,” he told Krem.

“Lots of redheaded serving girls at the tavern,” he realized out loud as he fingered the rim of his mug. “Not really my type.”

“I suppose that’s worked out well for you two,” Dorian huffed.

Krem blinked and looked up at him.

“What do you mean?” he flatly asked.

Dorian gave him a long-suffering look.

“You and Bull have very different tastes in people that you take to bed,” he remarked. “You two would be absolutely insufferable if you started fighting over the Inquisitor.”

That last part seemed to have been pulled out of him by the alcohol because Dorian bit his tongue right after he said it.

Krem considered that as he watched Dorian slump back in his seat.

“We both fell for you,” he said, simply.

Dorian’s chin snapped up at that.

“ _Fell for me_?” he exclaimed, suddenly very sure of himself. “I didn’t realize that I had such a substantial impact on you.”

Krem immediately regretted fueling Dorian’s ego, and it showed.

“Don’t think too much into it,” he muttered, and turned to see Bull returning for their table with two barmaids that were very much Krem’s type.

“Are you Cremisius?” The taller woman had dark, cropped hair and an androgynous, wispy figure.

“I’ve seen you around Skyhold,” said the other woman— overflowing in her cinched bodice with long, black hair freefalling in waves down her back. “Moving up in the world, aren’t you?”

“Evening, ladies,” Krem said, trying to keep his cool. “I see you’ve already met Bull.”

“On multiple occasions,” the taller one attested.

Dorian impatiently rapped his fingertips on the table.

“I’m Sonya,” she continued. “This is Dawn. You up for a little fun? Our shift’s just about to end.”

“Absolutely,” Krem answered without hesitation and got up from his chair.

“Don’t have _too much_ fun,” Dorian muttered as the women linked arms with Krem.

“Lighten up, Dorian,” Bull admonished him in a lowered voice. “Let the man live a little.”

Dorian watched Krem leave with a sneaking suspicion tapping at his brain and he slowly turned his attention to Bull.

“So are you going to tell me why you’re treating tonight like the last night of shore leave for Krem?” Dorian asked once the three of them were well out of earshot.

Bull’s good mood evaporated on the spot. He took a deep breath and let it out in a guttural, disheartened huff.

“Because it just might be,” he admitted.


	9. Of Dizzying Heights

Sonya stopped by her room to get some glass smoking pipes along with her stash of elfroot. Dawn, meanwhile, procured a small keg of ale from the kitchens. Then they led Krem to the top of one of the taller towers in Skyhold. 

Together they climbed a spiraling set of stairs to a solitary penthouse room that had a leaky roof and therefore almost never saw any visitors. And Dawn had to spend several minutes clogging all the cracks in the walls along with the doors and windows to keep the elfroot smoke from their pipes from escaping. The bed was clean enough, though, and Krem settled against the headrest to start his long night of carefree debauchery. 

After an hour of smoking elfroot from a hookah pipe and finishing his mug of ale, Krem was feeling really good. Sonya had joined him on the bed, and Dawn was across the room, busying herself with the keg of ale that she had found. 

Lounging on a mountain of pillows, Krem craned his head back and puffed three green rings of smoke towards the ceiling. 

“Good stuff, huh?” Sonya asked as her fingers traced invisible fancies across the front of his binder. “And here I thought getting high would be something above someone of your station.”

“My knighthood isn’t official yet,” Krem simply said. “Right now I’m just a very lucky one-eyed man.”

Krem absentmindedly held out his hand in front of him and inspected the lines on his palm. He wiggled his fingers and lost himself to his own inebriated curiosity. 

A black spark of electricity suddenly crackled on his thumb, but Sonya was too baked to look surprised by it. He lazily led the spark across his fingertips— thumb to pointer, pointer to middle, middle to ring, ring to pinky. And then he sent it all the way back again. 

Krem clenched his hand into a fist and opened it again, and the spark was gone. He did it mostly to amuse himself, but Sonya resting her head on his shoulder to admire it didn’t hurt, either. 

“I didn’t know you were a mage,” she remarked. 

Krem’s mood soured just a bit as he let his hand drop heavily back onto the mattress. 

“I’m not,” he said without clarification. 

Sonya got a curious look in her dark eyes but settled against Krem without a fuss. Then a wry smile crossed her red lips. 

“Oh, Krem!” she playfully exclaimed. “What is _that_!”

Dawn had hidden behind the headrest of the bed and slowly lifted a slipper above Krem’s head. 

Krem’s troubled thoughts were almost instantly forgotten, and he just as soon cowered away from the shoe in a fit of uncomfortable giggles. 

“I am _way_ too high for this,” he said and covered his face to hide from Dawn’s slipper. 

The girls laughed with him and made ghost noises as another slipper was lifted up next to it. 

“What the _fuuuuuck_ ,” Krem said and took another drag from his hookah pipe. “Now there’s two!”

But their antics were suddenly interrupted by the door creaking open from across the room. 

Bull stood stoically on the threshold— uninvited and unannounced as he was. As such, he was greeted with nothing but various degrees of apprehension from Krem and his bedmates. 

“Time’s up,” Bull announced. 

“You just had to let out the smoke,” Dawn scoffed. “We had a hotbox going, Bull.”

“Then start another one somewhere else,” he dryly responded. “I need to have a word with my former lieutenant.”

Dawn’s slippers slowly lowered from above Krem’s head as Sonya unhappily rolled off of the mattress that she was sharing with Krem. Sonya and Dawn moved quickly as they collected their belongings, but Krem still spotted the golden sovereigns that Bull palmed to them on their way out the door. 

“No hard feelings,” Bull told them. 

“With you?” Sonya quipped. “Never.”

The barmaids pocketed the coins as they left and the door was quietly closed behind them. 

Krem tried to find the anger in Bull’s features— the irritation— the bitterness. But he found nothing. Even after all these years, Krem couldn’t find a single giveaway in any of those deep lines that made up Bull’s face. And somehow that was even worse. 

“Come keep me company,” Bull said as he made his way towards the balcony, “if you can manage to stand.”

Bull then kicked a towel out from under the glass door that led out to the balcony and went outside as Krem forced his legs over the bed to join him. 

Krem had no idea how long he had been drinking and smoking with those barmaids. The elfroot and the ale had dealt a double-whammy to his sense of time. But he eventually found his way next to Bull near the decrepit stone banister that skirted the balcony. 

And standing ninety feet up in the air gave him one hell of a view of the night sky. 

Krem stared up at a blanket of diamonds, each sparking with a radiance that shouldn’t have been possible. He followed each of the constellations with his mind’s eye and smiled as he lost himself in it. 

“Krem?”

Bull’s insistent voice jolted him out of his trance. 

“Wh— What?” he dumbly replied. 

“I said it’s been a while since we’ve talked like this,” Bull said. “I had a feeling you’d be out of it, but they really sent you over the moon, huh?”

Krem chuckled nervously. 

“I really don’t want to think too hard about the moon right now,” he said. 

And Bull laughed— truly, joyfully. 

It was like music to Krem, and he automatically closed the space between them. 

“Then let’s talk about whatever you want,” Bull said.

And there was something buried deep in his voice that made Krem pause. He covered Bull’s hand on the cracked, mossy banister and squeezed it tight.

“I know the past week has been… _a lot_ ,” Krem said, choosing his words carefully. “But you know we’ll get through it, right?” 

Bull didn’t look Krem in the eye. He kept his gaze forward and unwavering. 

“Yeah,” he replied. “We always get through it, don’t we?”

Krem smiled at that. 

“Always,” he agreed as he looked back up at the stars. “No matter what.”

That must have been what Bull wanted to hear because a huge hand closed on the front of Krem’s jacket and smoothly spun him around on the spot. Krem barely had the wherewithal to brace himself on the banister behind him before Bull was inches away from his face. 

Krem was so distracted that he didn’t hear the stone crackling apart under his hands. And if Bull heard it, it was the last thing on his mind. 

“I never want to lose you again,” Bull said. 

Krem could feel Bull’s hot breath on his neck. 

Then Krem felt a large hand touch his stomach and glide slowly up his chest. 

It stoked a fire in him. 

Krem grabbed Bull by the harness in both hands and spun him around to have dominance. But just as soon as Bull’s back hit the banister, it completely crumbled under him. 

Krem felt his heart leap into his throat as Bull immediately shoved him to safety— further back on the balcony— and Bull began to fall away from him over the sheer edge of the tower. 

“ _No!_ ” Krem screamed. 

With no time to think, he leapt forward with his hand desperately outstretched. And it miraculously found purchase over Bull’s thick wrist. But Krem had no way to anchor himself, let alone a fully-grown Qunari, and so they both went toppling together. 

Krem wrapped his arms around Bull as they fell through the unforgiving air, and Bull held tightly onto him in return. 

“ _Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!_ ” Krem yelled with the wind howling in his ears. 

Was this how it all ended? Not on some bloody battlefield, but mangled at the foot of a tower because of one of his thoughtless mistakes?

“ _NO!_ ”

Krem willed all the magic in him to somehow cushion their fall, but instead, the ground opened up a huge, abyssal maw to swallow them. 

And then everything went dark.


	10. Of Lost and Wandering Spirits

Krem’s cognizance slowly came back to him. Was he in the afterlife with Andraste? Or back at the Crossroads with _Fen’harel_? Would any god even accept him now?

The thrumming sound of Bull’s heartbeat next to his ear willed him to move. 

With a breathless groan, Krem pushed Bull’s heavy arm off of him. They had fallen together in a heap and Bull still hadn’t regained consciousness. He looked around and saw that all of the stars in the sky were gone. They had been replaced with something much more unnerving— a ghostly green sky.

‘ _I opened a portal to the Fade_ ,’ he realized.

Pillars of black stone and a ghastly chill were all that surrounded him. He could hear the death rattles of wayward spirits and the cursed undead in the distance. This was nothing like his previous trips to the Fade, and Krem’s utmost priority was getting the hell out of here. 

“Bull,” Krem called out as he tried to shake the Qunari to his senses. “You have to get up. We aren’t safe here.”

Bull jolted to awareness at that. His hand found Krem’s upper arm as if on instinct and gripped it hard before he had even opened his eye. 

“ _Krem_ …!” he gasped, half-awake. 

Krem touched his hand in return. 

“I’m here,” he reassured him. “We’re alive.”

Krem helped Bull into an upright position and Bull’s face fell when he surveyed their surroundings. 

“Well, shit,” he said. 

“You can say that again,” Krem dryly responded. 

The two of them slowly got to their feet and were rendered silent with indecision and uncertainty. 

“Apparently you’re not the only one who’s high as balls right now,” Bull stated. 

“We’re sober,” Krem said and walked forward, trying to get his bearings. 

“I was only in that room for a fucking second,” Bull went on, completely ignoring him. “Must have been some new, specialized strain to work that fast on—“

“You’re _not_ high,” Krem insisted. “I’m not high, either. Now shut up and let me think.”

Bull was rambling. And he only did that when he was scared. Krem was glad to have only seen it once before, but it had left an impression on him. 

“Next you’re gonna tell me we’re in the fucking Fade,” Bull said. 

“We’re in the fucking Fade,” Krem answered him, quickly losing his patience. “I accidentally opened a portal and we fell into it. Now I have to figure out how to get us back. So just—“

Krem’s words left in him a rush as he spotted a large, familiar wolf on a distant hill. _Fen’harel_ was considering him with a level gaze, and just as soon as they made eye contact, the wolf bounded out of sight. 

“Solas!” Krem blurted out and he immediately took chase. 

Bull shouted something after him, but Krem was utterly deaf to it. He sprinted as hard as he could across the barren landscape, hoping against hope that he’d catch up with the elven god. 

Krem crested the hill as fast as his legs would allow it and scrambled to find a sign of which way Solas went. He found a set of huge pawprints in the dark, loose dirt and kicked off at a run to follow them. 

It was easy enough to sense Solas’ spirit, but it was harder for Krem to pinpoint it. All he could do was follow his trail and pray that he’d find Solas before any unfriendly spirits found them. 

After rounding a tight corner, Krem completely lost sight of _Fen’harel_ and the pawprints were nowhere to be found. Krem couldn’t even sense his spirit. He quietly cursed under his breath— grateful that his will to do so hadn’t been stolen again— and Bull finally caught up with him. 

“Krem, what are you doing?” Bull reprimanded him. “We need to stick together.”

“Yeah, I know,” Krem irritably said. “But I saw…”

Krem’s voice trailed when he realized that they had come upon an open expanse with a black throne located in the center of it. And upon closer, cautious inspection, Krem saw that a skeleton was seated on the throne with a magical staff held in its bony hand. His stomach dropped when he recognized the staff and saw pointy cartilage sticking out from both sides of the skull. 

“ _Solas_?” he gasped and reached out to touch the Elven remains.

Krem’s fingertips barely brushed the bones before they crumbled to dust. And Krem deftly caught Solas’ staff before it fell to the ground. 

A piercing screech filled the air around them and Bull spun to face it. 

“Krem,” he said, his voice terse. “Open the damn portal again.”

Krem felt Bull back into him and as Krem turned around his eye widened in unbridled horror. 

A monstrous demon loomed over the both of them from a stone’s throw away and let out a sound of nails running across stone. It was the color of human flesh but that’s exactly where the similarities ended. Amorphous and without any eyes, it opened a gigantic mouth full of sharp teeth to swallow them whole. 

“Open a fucking portal!” Bull screamed. “NOW!”

Krem stifled a scream that had erupted in his chest and tried to hyperfocus on what Bull had told him to do. He aimlessly held out Solas’ staff and his mind went utterly blank with panic.

The demon approached them with hungry resolve, and Bull shielded Krem— his arms desperately outstretched. 

Bull yelled Krem’s name as if it were the last time that they’d hear it. 

Krem knew he only had one shot at this. 

He held out the staff as he’d seen Solas do a hundred times and visualized an exit with only one thing in mind. 

‘ _Skyhold_.’

The air ripped apart at the seam and opened up in a haze of black and purple in front of the throne. And without thinking, Krem grabbed the back of Bull’s harness with his free hand and lunged into the abyss just as the howling demon attacked. 

The two of them tumbled through the portal and collapsed onto the stone floor as the portal closed itself behind them. 

They were safe and sound— back on the balcony. 

Krem’s hand tightened around Solas’ staff as he composed himself on his hands and knees. Bull was trembling beside him. 

“I trust you,” Bull choked out. 

Krem was sure he’d misheard him. Or that Bull had lost his mind from fear. 

“What?” Krem gasped. 

Bull took a deep, concerted breath and tried again. 

“I’ve given you a lot of grief since Val Royeaux,” he said. “It ends here. I was... out of line to distrust you, Krem.”

Krem felt tears prickling at his eye in a wash of unexpected emotion. 

“I guess we’re even for what happened in Kirkwall, then,” he said.

Bull looked up at him at that. 

“What are you talking about?” he asked. 

Krem got to a sitting position and all the anger and pain that he had felt in Kirkwall’s sewers came flooding back to him. Except this time all that came from it was an overwhelming sense of guilt.

“I learned you were working with the Arishok,” he said. “And I was going to kill you for it.”

Bull considered that and crawled to Krem’s side. He grabbed Krem’s jacket in a boulder-sized fist and pulled him into a strong hug. 

”I’m glad that you didn’t,” Bull said.

Krem closed his eye and finally let himself find peace with Bull.

“Nothing will ever come between us again,” Krem vowed as he glanced at Solas’ staff on the ground next to him. “I’ll make sure of it.”


	11. Of Peacocks on Parade

_12 years ago…_

The Dracona longhouse tavern— the largest host of public festivities in Minrathous— was decked out in colorful lanterns and seasonal flora. It meant that Matrinalis had finally arrived. 

The magocratic capital was extravagant in its celebration of the Soul’s Day harvest. The breeze carried a newly sharpened bite as it went and leaves began to paint the ground in the warmest colors of the earth. 

It was Krem’s favorite time of the year. 

‘ _Too bad I’m wasting it on one of Mother’s stupid courtship parties_ ,’ he moodily thought. 

Krem had just reached his fifteenth name-day this past week, but the milestone had been overshadowed by the birth of his baby sister. And once his mother had recovered from childbirth, she had wasted no time in trotting him out to the big city like a prized mare ready to breed. 

Revulsion clotted in his stomach like week-old milk at the thought of it. 

Krem was hiding just outside a side entrance with a cigarette that he had stolen along the way to calm himself down. With all the stuffed shirts and full purses at the party, he was sure that neither he nor the cig would be missed. 

After puffing the thing down to a stub, he put it out under the thin heel of his shoe and discarded it. He’d smudged grey ashes on the lace of his white debutante dress in the process. 

‘ _Good_ ,’ he thought. ‘ _Maybe it’ll give me an excuse to never wear it again_.’

“Excuse me?” A voice interrupted his thoughts. “Are you Olivia?”

Krem halfheartedly cocked his head to the side and watched as a stranger approached him. It was a young man— only a couple years older than Krem— in a simple black dress suit. But Krem spotted a large, sparkling blue gem dangling from his ear that seemed far too gaudy to be considered high-class. 

It came off as a small but deliberate act of rebellion, more than anything. 

Krem had seen his type before— in the many suitors that his mother had lined up for him. He only hoped that the oily stench of smoke in his mouth would scare the poor beau away. 

“What do you want?” Krem impatiently asked him. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

The suitor raised an eyebrow at him. It suggested he was unaccustomed to such an ungracious reaction to his presence. He pulled out a bouquet of pink flowers from behind his back to compensate. 

“Your mother sent me to sweep you off your feet,” he explained with a flourish of his hand. 

It dragged an ugly, scornful sound out of Krem. 

“Oh, I’m sure she did,” he darkly chuckled. 

Krem kicked at the dirt in hopes that the guy would just give up and leave him to sulk by himself. With so much sweet-smelling pomade twirled in his dark hair and a tidier mustache than most young men his age, he’d undoubtedly be able to score with someone who was more willing to be wooed tonight. 

“My name is Dorian,” he tried again. “Dorian of House Pavus.”

“I didn’t ask,” Krem emphatically said. 

Dorian wilted slightly at that. But those blue eyes narrowed with undeniable frustration. 

“Don’t tell me,” he finally conceded. “I’m assuming you aren’t exactly into boys.”

Krem’s nose crinkled with annoyance.

“You know what they say about assuming,” he muttered, full of malaise. “It makes you look like a fucking dumbass.”

Krem tried to force his way past Dorian, but he was blocked with a hasty sidestep. 

“At least take the flowers,” Dorian entreated him. “Tell your mother I gave it my best shot.”

Krem slowly lifted his chin at him. 

“ _That_ was your best shot?” he callously asked. “You’ll never get married at that rate.”

Dorian’s chin jutted out— thinking better of saying what he truly wanted to say. 

“You’re not the type of person that I usually chase, anyway,” he opted to throw out. 

Krem stood as tall as he could and his hands went to closed fists at his sides. 

“You’re not exactly a grand prize, yourself,” he rebutted. 

There was a loud, prolonged silence that followed— heating the air between the two of them. And then, with no warning, they both crashed into each other at the same time— in a kiss like cannon fire. 

Krem grabbed Dorian’s lapels and shoved him hard against the side of the longhouse as pink flower petals fell around them in a whirlwind of movement. As they kissed, Krem pinned his knee into Dorian’s thigh and mussed up that stupid, perfect hair into a wonderful disaster. 

Dorian had his hands out in the open, not sure what to do with them. But he finally splayed them against the wall behind him with a strange, contemplative sound against Krem’s mouth. 

Krem broke off the kiss with a confused look on his face, not understanding why Dorian was suddenly acting like a chaste, bashful halfwit.

“I knew you were all talk,” Krem told him, blatantly disappointed. 

Then Krem walked off, wiping Dorian’s wetness off of his face with the back of his hand. And Dorian was left with his heart pounding and an identity crisis looming on the edge of his mind. 

“You kiss like a boy,” Dorian stiffly announced.

It was enough to stop Krem in his tracks. 

Krem slowly turned to look at Dorian and wondered if his long-kept secret had somehow been found out by this paradoxical suitor.

“You kiss like a virgin,” Krem shot back and then he disappeared into the crowded longhouse.


	12. Of Together We Stand

Krem awoke from the memory suddenly but not frantically. Just the opening of his eye and Bull’s ceiling coming into focus. Krem closed his eye again and took a deep, quiet inhale through his nose. Peace had found him. 

Tilting his head on his pillow, he saw Dorian beside him— still sleeping soundly with the blanket low enough for Krem to drink in the sight of his arms, his shoulders, his back. 

Krem fought back the urge to reach out and touch him. 

‘ _Let him sleep_ ,’ Krem told himself. ‘ _You have other things to do_.’

After showering and getting into his uniform, Krem stole away to their shared wardrobe and retrieved Solas’ staff from the back of it. It was a brilliant shade of silver with two decorative serpents holding its focus in their fangs. 

The irony of snakes being a prominent fixture of Tevinter heraldry was not lost on him. 

‘ _This shouldn’t belong to me_ ,’ he decided and took his leave from Bull’s quarters. 

The crisp early morning air filled the open throne room along with the smell of cooked eggs and savory breakfast meats. But Krem wanted to pass on ownership of Solas’ staff as soon as possible and so he hurried straight to the war room without eating anything. 

“—won’t make me choose between Dorian and Krem for the mission?”

Bull’s low, rumbling voice was impossible for Krem to not recognize even behind the oak door. 

“No, of course not,” the Inquisitor answered in a comforting tone. “I wouldn’t force you to choose between your heart and your soul like that.”

Krem felt his heart strings being plucked. And before he could get in trouble for eavesdropping again, he pushed open the door. 

Bull and the Inquisitor turned to look at him in perfect unison. 

“Krem!” the Inquisitor exclaimed and rushed to him with a smile. 

She reached out, towards his face, and for a moment he thought she would touch the thick, raised scar that the Arishok had left on him. But instead, her fingertips brushed his cheekbone— just below his eye. And then she openly stared into him.

The way she fixated on his eye— like it was some crystal ball with precious secrets hidden inside— disturbed him. Krem realized that Josephine was right. This wasn’t just a curiosity that the Inquisitor had concerning the Diviners’ magic. It was an obsession. And it was growing stronger with every passing day.

Krem gently brought her hand away from his face and held it in both of his. It seemed to bring her back down from the clouds. 

“Inquisitor,” he said in a tone as soft as silk. “I want you to have Solas’ staff.”

The Inquisitor blinked and shifted her attention to the staff in his hand. 

“Bull told me about what happened with the demon in the Fade,” she said. “You made a portal!” She excitedly bounced on her toes as she said it. “You made a _portal_ , Krem!”

Neither Krem nor Bull shared a single iota of her excitement. 

“The portal that we fell into was a complete accident,” he said, shaking his head. “And I wouldn’t have been able to do it again if my life hadn’t depended on it. You deserve his staff a lot more than I do.”

The Inquisitor scoffed at him. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, still smiling. “Once you’re trained up, you’ll be a wonderful—“

“Inquisitor, I want you to have it,” Krem insisted. 

The sudden bite in his voice caught her off guard, and the joy fell heavily away from her face. 

“Did _Fen’harel_ tell you to hand it off to me?” she asked him. 

Krem almost considered lying. 

“No,” he muttered. “He didn’t say anything.”

“Then it’s yours,” she said, her smile slowly returning. “Please keep it, Krem. Do it because I asked you to do it, if for no other reason.”

Krem knew that the Inquisitor had him backed into a corner. After all, she was a top-notch strategist. Krem hadn’t stood a chance at outmaneuvering her. And Bull just stood off to the side with a grim slash of a frown on his face. No doubt, he took zero pleasure in watching the two of them discuss Solas’ staff as if it were a prized heirloom from a dearly departed grandparent. 

“Okay,” Krem quietly relented. “I will.”

The Inquisitor perked up at that. 

“Good,” she chirped and gleefully squeezed his hand. “Now come with me. I need to notarize your paperwork before we start the ceremony.”

Krem gripped at Solas’ staff to suppress his chagrin as he joined the Inquisitor at her desk. He didn’t dare look up at Bull as he passed by him, and Bull didn’t follow after them. 

“You’re— at long last— being promoted to the position of knight-captain,” the Inquisitor declared as she led him to a smattering of forms on the desk. “Your recruits had a 100% success rate in their tryouts with Cullen yesterday. You should be proud of yourself.”

Krem slowly, absently nodded. 

“Where do I sign?” he asked.

The Inquisitor pointed out the dotted lines on every bit of parchment that she had laid out for him and Krem dutifully scrawled his name at the bottom of each of his recruits’ forms. A facial composite of each of the scouts looked back at him from the top of each page, and Krem noticed that he felt a lot more pride in them than he did for himself. 

“You’ll be a fantastic knight-captain, Krem,” the Inquisitor told him. 

Krem gave her a small smile. 

“I’ll certainly give it my all, Inquisitor,” he said. 

And just as the last paper was stamped with the Inquisitor’s official regalia, Krem heard a polite knock at the door. 

“They’ve arrived early,” the Inquisitor happily exclaimed. “Krem, for your first official duty as my knight-captain, would you please give our guests a warm welcome?”

Krem raised an uncertain eyebrow at her but nodded all the same. 

“Of course,” he answered, and promptly made his way to the door. 

And when he pulled it open, his heart soared. 

Varric, Hawke, and Fenris all stood on the other side of the threshold with anticipation all over their faces. And when they saw Krem, their expressions lit up like fireworks. 

“Welcome back,” Krem told them, barely holding back a giddy laugh. 

Krem went for a handshake with Hawke, but he was pulled into a friendly hug instead. 

“Surely you didn’t think a handshake was enough after everything we did in Kirkwall,” Hawke said against his shoulder. 

Krem patted him on the back a couple times to make amends. 

“You don’t know how good it is to see you,” he said wholeheartedly. 

They withdrew and Krem got a good look at Varric and Fenris. They seemed well rested and not at all worse for wear from their journey. 

Fenris didn’t say anything, but the creases on his face had smoothed into something much more relaxed. Krem hoped that their deal on The Sunbeam had given him some peace of mind about returning to Skyhold. 

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, big guy,” Varric told him. And then a cynical glint flashed in his eyes. “Is that Solas’ staff you’re holding?”

Krem awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. 

“It’s a long story,” he mumbled. “I’ll tell you everything later. Hopefully with the help of some top-shelf alcohol.”

Then Bull’s hand fell in a possessive way onto Krem’s shoulder, and Krem looked up to see a stern look on the Qunari’s face. Hawke automatically sidestepped to fill the space between Bull and Fenris in no time flat, and the air around them went thick with tension. 

“Garrett Hawke,” Bull said, breaking the silence. “Champion of Kirkwall.”

Krem watched Hawke’s hand itch for the staff strapped to his back. 

“Iron Bull,” he flummoxed. “Krem’s… uh, Chief.”

Bull let slip a cool smile despite himself. 

“Formerly,” Bull corrected him. “Krem’s got a new boss now. The ink just dried.”

“Never thought I’d see the day,” Varric quipped. 

The Inquisitor approached them and dropped her hand on Krem’s other shoulder. 

“Don’t undersell it,” she teased him. “Krem’s promotion is likely to be the best news Garrett and Fenris will hear all day.” 

She gave Krem an encouraging look, and he straightened his posture to announce it. 

“You’re both exonerated,” Krem said, not wanting to mince words about it. “No strings attached.”

Fenris’ eyes widened in disbelief. Then he stepped forward and wordlessly brought Krem into a hug. 

“You’re a free man, Fenris,” Krem said and hugged him back. “Just don’t use your freedom to kidnap me again, okay?”

Krem felt Fenris weakly laugh into his shoulder. 

“That sounds very fair to me,” he replied. 

And to Krem’s surprise, the Inquisitor had tears in her eyes when he turned to look at her. 

“Let’s all get some drinks together,” she suggested, swiping at her face. “I think we all deserve it.”


	13. Of Divided We Fall

_Four days later…_

A thunderstorm darkened the skies over Skyhold on the day of the ceremony. There was no wind and no rain, just the distant booming of thunder and the flash of lightning in the far distance. But despite the looming bad weather, the throne room had filled to bursting with curious and excited partygoers. 

Krem and the Inquisitor were the last ones to arrive, and after they were announced by Cullen, they entered the throne room together. 

A sea of colorful masks and extravagant outfits greeted them along with excited shouts and applause. But even with the flimsy disguises, Krem could recognize almost everyone within sight. The illusion of mystique sent a thrill through the crowd, but all of it was safe and rehearsed. It was a rainbow-scaled dragon with no fire on its breath nor teeth in its mouth. 

It was a celebration, after all. 

With her arm linked with Krem’s, the Inquisitor led him to her throne at the head of the hall, and he genuflected in front of it. The room went quiet as the Inquisitor removed Hawke’s sword from the sheath on Krem’s hip and touched his shoulders with the flat of the blade. 

“I hereby grant you the title of Knight-Captain Cremisius Aclassi,” the Inquisitor declared. “Now rise... and dance with your Inquisitor.”

Krem heard a low wave of chuckles as he got to his feet. He accepted Hawke’s sword from the Inquisitor and dutifully returned it to its scabbard. Then he took up the Inquisitor’s hand and kissed the dark green stone on her finger. And when they turned together to face the crowd— hand-in-hand— and were hailed with a tremendous ovation. 

Looking out into the crowd, Krem spotted several familiar faces regardless of the masks that everyone wore. Dorian, Bull, Varric, Hawke, and Fenris were all in attendance, and they all looked stunning in their formalwear. But Josephine was nowhere to be seen. She had left last night without saying goodbye. And the Inquisitor had been vague about the details of where she had travelled or when she’d return.

The party felt utterly incomplete without her. 

“Let’s go give them a show,” the Inquisitor whispered to him, rousing Krem from his thoughts. 

And he was happy to oblige her. 

With a sweeping spin across the open floor, the two of them evoked excited shouts of approval from the crowd. And Krem saw from the Inquisitor’s bright smile that she was reveling in it. 

Their dance began, and Krem deftly matched the Inquisitor’s bouncing footwork. The choreography was folksy and spirited— all warmth and no heat— perfectly setting the expectations of their future alliance to the room. 

Drums and flutes and fiddles accompanied their dancing, and many of the partygoers cheered and clapped along as they watched the two of them skip and twirl across the marble floor. 

And after several minutes, Krem dipped the Inquisitor in a pose at the last strike of the band. It was met with a roar of enthusiastic applause, and Krem smoothly pulled the Inquisitor back to her feet. Then she playfully leaned against him with one leg kicked out behind her. 

It was a picture-perfect scene.

But their dancing was destined to be interrupted for a second time by the Grand Duchess of Orlais.

Florianne’s heels struck the hard floor as she cut a path towards them— right down the center of the hall. And the audacious breach of protocol was more than enough to get people murmuring amongst one another. 

The Grand Duchess wore no mask to hide her face, but Krem saw that there were three familiar gold pins holding up her hair in a tight bun.

‘ _The pins from the map in the war room_ ,’ he realized, and it turned his blood to ice. 

And the uneasy look on the Inquisitor’s face told Krem that she had spotted the map pins as well. 

The white queen had leapt across the board out of turn, and everyone in attendance was too shocked to intervene. 

“It’s a shame that one of your ravens lost my invitation, Lavellan,” the Grand Duchess said loud enough for her voice to carry. 

Krem felt a tiny elven hand close tightly in his own. 

“That is a daring assumption, Florianne,” the Inquisitor countered.

The Grand Duchess sneered down her nose at the Inquisitor and then her glare snapped to Krem. The unhidden hatred in her eyes practically paralyzed him. 

“I must confess,” she jeered, “I was under the impression that you would be lauding a knight, not a shield-maiden.”

The comment hit Krem like a solid punch to the stomach.

It sent bile crawling up his chest and he quickly forced it back down. 

A punch would have been kinder. 

The Inquisitor dropped all civility and put herself between Krem and Florianne in one strong step. 

“Hold your peace, _harellan_ ,” she warned, “or he will hold it for you.”

In the blink of an eye, Krem heedlessly grabbed the hilt of Hawke’s sword, stopping just short of unsheathing it. And just as he did, a loud crack of thunder rang out overhead and shook the hall’s stained glass windows in their panes. 

The long silence that followed was stifling. 

“Peace will be nothing but a sweet memory after tonight,” Florianne swore and sharply turned on her heel. 

Krem thought that she would leave then and there— he practically prayed for it— but she stopped at the edge of the crowd to watch the rest of the proceedings. 

Everything suddenly began to fall away as Krem lost himself to disassociation. But the Inquisitor hastily pushed the mask from his face and looked deep into his eye. 

“Stay with me Krem,” she breathed. “I’m here. It’ll be alright.”

Krem forced himself to focus on the Inquisitor’s words as she spoke them. He crushed his eye shut and centered himself. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” he wheezed. “I know that The Game—“

“Some things are more important than The Game,” the Inquisitor said, unquestionably. 

Once the incident had passed, Krem realized that his hand was still firmly gripping the sword at his side. His hand was shaking as he forced his fingers to let go of it. 

“ _Krem_.”

The sudden, unexpected voice made Krem spin in place. Bull had traversed the hall and was now standing in front of Krem, reaching out to him. 

Krem blinked once, confused. This wasn’t part of what they had rehearsed for the ceremony. But Bull was still standing there, steadfast in a dashing black suit and a sparkly pink mask with a hand extended for him. 

It was like something out of a dream. 

Krem’s hand found Bull’s unthinkingly, and Bull gently pulled him closer. Bull’s arm brazenly wrapped around Krem’s waist, bringing Krem flush against him. And after taking off his pink mask and tossing it to the floor, Bull kissed him. 

The hall filled up with a collective, astonished gasp as it happened. 

Engrossed murmurs rippled through the crowd. 

It was a bell that could never be unrung. 

Bull’s eye was closed as he kissed Krem, his defenses completely lowered. And with all other thoughts thrown to the wind, safely moored in the harbor of Bull’s arms, Krem kissed him back. 

After what somehow seemed like the briefest moment and a blissful eternity, Bull withdrew and looked out into the crowd. His one, dark eye slowly swept over each hidden face as if challenging anyone to object. Then his glare stopped on Florianne and intensified tenfold.

This was not an act of impulse.

It was a message being sent. 

Another crash of thunder rang out right above their heads, and with his soldier’s sense ringing in his ears, Krem broke out of his reverie. 

_Something is wrong._

Krem wasn’t sure if it was his own worried thought or a telepathic warning from _Fen’harel_. 

He turned just in time to see a figure cloaked in black, their face hidden in a dark hood, crouched behind the throne with murderous intent. But the Inquisitor only had eyes for Krem and Bull. There was no time for her to react. 

Krem _had_ to save her. 

As if on instinct, Krem surged forward in an impossible leap, throwing himself between the Inquisitor and the intruder. The glint of a knife appeared out of the assassin’s cloak as they lunged forward. But Krem shielded the Inquisitor well, and the small blade buried itself into Krem’s side instead. 

The poison on the blade wracked his entire body before he even hit the ground. 

Krem crumpled at the Inquisitor’s feet, utterly incapacitated.

He could only force out two words before he succumbed to the pain. 

“ _Inquisitor… run!_ ”

And then the world was lost.


	14. Of Fighting Tooth and Nail

Krem woke up to a living hell.

The stench of burning flesh and blood-slicked iron overtook him as he awoke. The screams of the desperate and dying surrounded him as he was carried across the upper courtyard.

Cloaked over Bull’s shoulder, Krem quickly realized that he couldn’t move. Not his arms, not his legs, not even his fingers or toes. Every ounce of strength had abandoned him. It was a gargantuan effort just to open his eye.

Krem had felt the unnatural heat in the air, but seeing Skyhold crumbling in flames before him was nearly unendurable. Massive explosions rocked the upper towers and sent entire sections of Skyhold tumbling to the ground like they were nothing. Members of the Inquisition ran and screamed with seemingly no direction or purpose other than escape. And far too many were cut down mid-stride by soldiers the likes of which Krem had never seen before.

This wasn’t a battle. It was a massacre.

“I recovered our weapons,” Dorian said from beside him, winded.

“We need to retreat,” Krem felt Bull grumble under him. “We’re outnumbered ten-to-one.”

“What about Krem?” Dorian asked, panic plain from his voice.

“He’ll live,” Bull grunted as they ran. “Sandbelly venom. Non-lethal neurotoxin.”

Dorian let out a sudden, combative shout— duel-wielding both his staff and Krem’s— and downed an enemy that had been rushing towards them with a burst of fire.

“That’s a very perceptive observation, Bull,” Dorian thereupon announced. “Even for you.”

Bull didn’t respond.

A swathe was made down the stone steps as Bull and Dorian fought side-by-side. Bull knocked off a quartet of soldiers off of the staircase with a swing from Krem’s maul, and Dorian used his fire magic to create space for them to move forward.

Once they hit the lower courtyard, Dorian shouted out a warning to Bull. A soldier on horseback was stampeding towards them. Bull dodged the soldier’s shortsword in one huge step and grabbed the hapless man by the arm as he passed. With a loud war cry, Bull dragged him out of the saddle and crushed his head under the head of Krem’s maul once he hit the ground— helmet and all.

Surrounded by mangled bodies from both sides of the battle— sprawled on the ground in ugly death throes— Krem hoped that his self-sacrifice had given the Inquisitor enough time to flee the throne room.

Bull stripped the fallen soldier’s horse of its saddle and helped Dorian mount it.

“I’ll lead,” Bull said in a hard tone that left no room for argument.

Still limp and unresponsive, Krem was draped over Dorian’s back before Bull mounted the horse at the front. And Krem forced his fingers to close around the fabric of Dorian’s robes so he wouldn’t fall.

‘ _I need to stay_ ,’ Krem thought, screwing his eye shut with his face pressed against Dorian’s upper back. ‘ _Need to find everyone and keep them safe_.’

But even past the numbness, Krem could sense a warmth spreading over his ribs. He trusted Bull when he said he’d live, but the assassin’s attack hadn’t been a shallow cut. His vision was already beginning to fail him, and steadily increasing blood loss was the least of his problems.

“ _Krem!_ ”

That voice sent rays of pure hope through Krem. It vitalized him just enough to turn his head and look behind him.

The Inquisitor stood behind the horse— close enough to reach— with her hand closed tightly around something. And she held it out to him with misery in her eyes.

“Krem, you have to—“

_**Schlick, schlick, schlick** _

Three arrowheads burst from the Inquisitor’s green dress and blossomed with blood.

The Inquisitor slowly looked down at her chest and dropped to her knees.

She looked up at Krem, and he saw the light leave her turquoise eyes.

Krem couldn’t even scream.

Bull urged the horse to run, and it did.

And as they disappeared into the night, the Inquisitor fell alone on the drawbridge of Skyhold.

* * *

Krem didn’t remember losing consciousness.

It was unclear whether he had fainted immediately or further down the road.

Nothing seemed to make sense anymore.

The early morning was cold and grey when Krem finally stirred. And he groaned as a full-body soreness rose up to meet him. That, he was expecting. But what he hadn’t expected was his hands being bound behind his back. Or his feet being locked together.

Up against a tree, sitting in a patch of dew-chilled grass and only half-awake, Krem fought against his restraints. A magical green force had been wrapped around him like rope. And under that, his chest was wrapped up with tattered clothes.

“I was hoping you’d stay asleep for at least a couple more hours.”

It was Dorian.

Krem could see him kneeling alone— and shirtless— by a campfire. And Krem quickly realized that he’d been bandaged with strips of Dorian’s robes.

Krem deduced from his surroundings that they had set up camp somewhere in the woods between Val Royeaux and Skyhold. They couldn’t have traveled far. Their horse was tied up to a distant tree along with all their weapons.

But a dull urgency ringing in Krem’s ears made all of those details completely inconsequential.

Those arrows piercing the Inquisitor— one-by-one— painted his mind in permanent ink.

Even when he closed his eye, it refused to be scrubbed away.

“ _Inquisitor_ ,” he choked out.

Dorian didn’t look up from the fire.

“Bull’s gone to take care of it,” Dorian stated as if he were discussing something mundane.

Everything within Krem screamed to get free— to make things right— and Dorian was the only thing standing between him and Skyhold.

“You son of a bitch!” Krem snarled through gritted teeth. “Let me go!”

“Stop wriggling,” Dorian chided him, his face placid. “You’ll break your sutures.”

“Was Bull the one who stitched it up?” Krem asked.

Dorian glanced up at that, not expecting such a question.

“Yes,” he said.

“Then I’m not worried about it,” Krem retorted.

Krem glanced around in a cagey way, looking for something to help him escape. He covertly checked the edges of his sleeves, the toes of his shoes. But all of his failsafes had been confiscated.

“ _Vishante kaffas_!” Krem swore. “I have to go back! The Inquisitor could still be—!”

“She isn’t, Krem,” Dorian flatly said.

“You don’t know that!” Krem insisted, still struggling in place. “I have to go to her! Unbind me _now!_ ”

“You’re in shock,” Dorian told him in an infuriating calm tone. “You need to get some rest—“

“ _Fuck_ rest!” Krem yelled. “Dorian, I swear, when I get my hands on you, I’ll—!”

_Be silent._

Krem swallowed his words in an instant as _Fen’harel’s_ voice returned to him.

_Distract him._

Krem did his best to keep his expression neutral.

_I’ll free you._

Dorian noticed Krem’s odd behavior and narrowed his cold, blue eyes at him.

“What is it?” he asked.

Krem scrambled for a strategy.

“I— I heard something,” he blurted out. “By the tree line. Go check it out.”

Skepticism was written all over Dorian’s face.

“I wasn’t born yesterday, Krem,” he said.

“You have me in a full-body bind!” Krem persisted. “It could be those soldiers tracking our movements! Just do it!”

Dorian’s frown deepened.

“Maker, you’re even starting to _sound_ like him,” he said, unhappily.

But even so, Dorian got to his feet and took up his staff before scouting out the area.

Krem soon felt a familiar crackling go down his arms and legs, making the hairs in the electricity’s path stand on end, and Dorian’s magic was nullified.

Krem snapped up his chin, worried that Dorian would sense the shift in magical energy, but his escape went unnoticed.

“I don’t see anything,” Dorian frustratedly called out to him. “It was probably just a bird taking flight.”

Slowly rising to his feet, Krem rubbed his sore wrists where they had been bound.

“Keep looking!” he shouted. “It was right over there, I just know it.”

Then Krem tread past the crackling campfire as quietly as he could. And with the help of a huge amount of luck (and Solas’ guidance) he successfully snuck up behind Dorian.

“Sorry about this,” Krem said.

Dorian spun around fast as a whip, but Krem had already pulled back his fist.

It was an easy sucker punch.

Krem almost felt guilty about it.

The jab solidly connected with the side of Dorian’s jaw as he turned, and the mage instantly ragdolled into Krem’s arms.

“You didn’t leave me much of a choice,” Krem muttered. “But I’ll be back with Bull and the Inquisitor before you know it.”


	15. Of a Short and Burning Fuse

After draping the unconscious body of Dorian over their new horse like a pair of saddlebags, Krem collected their weapons and rode back to Skyhold. They travelled under a cloudless morning sky and with a slight chill in the air. 

There was a sharp, distinctive smell of ghostweed that emanated from Krem’s bandaged wound, and even with his novice experience with antidotes, Krem put together what that meant. 

‘ _Sandbelly venom_ ,’ he realized. ‘ _Whoever targeted the Inquisitor didn’t intend to kill her_.’ 

It fed his desperate need for hope, and he urged the horse into a gallop. 

After half an hour, the remnants of Skyhold came into view. The chaos of last night’s battle had since smoldered into embers. Stragglers from both sides of the conflict were carrying out furniture and other stolen wares with contemptible banality. They stepped over the corpses of their companions sprawled across the lawn with only their own self-interest in mind.

It set Krem’s teeth on edge. 

As he crossed the drawbridge, he spotted a red stain in the boards where the Inquisitor had fallen, but her body was nowhere to be found. 

Krem’s grip absentmindedly tightened on the horse’s mane. 

‘ _I can’t let my anger distract me,_ ’ Krem thought and searched for a trail to follow. ‘ _I have to find her_.’

The ground around him was covered in fresh footprints and hoofprints of all kinds. But luckily for Krem, Qunari are not known for their stealth. 

Krem turned the horse around and went to the edge of the far woods. He scanned the trees where Bull’s horns would have knocked down any loose branches. It took Krem longer than he would have liked, but he eventually found signs of Bull’s search for cover. And soon afterward, he found a familiar set of Qunari footprints. 

Krem was definitely on the right track. 

Delving into the forest, he followed the trail of broken tree limbs at a steady pace. And in a matter of minutes he came across a wooded glade with a large tree at the center of it. 

Bull and Cullen were standing near the giant roots of the tree, and in front of them— sunken deep in the ground— was an open grave. 

The horse sensed Krem’s discomfort and stopped walking. 

‘ _Maker, have mercy_...’ Krem thought.

But there was no response to his prayer. Not from the Maker nor _Fen’harel_. 

Krem numbly got off of the horse and led it forward. Something was said between Bull and Cullen, and Cullen turned to look at Krem. Then Cullen sighed and closed the distance between them. Krem noticed several deep cuts on Cullen’s face that he had taken during the fight. And Cullen noticed that Dorian was out cold. 

“Will he be alright?” Cullen asked, concerned. 

“Yeah,” Krem muttered. “I pulled my punch.”

Surprise flashed across Cullen’s face, but then he sobered up as he collected his thoughts. 

“Skyhold is gone,” he declared. “We must rebuild, but I’m unsure of where or how.”

“The Western Approach,” Krem offered. “You can see enemy forces for miles. And the isolation along with the extreme weather will offer some small protection as well, like it did for Skyhold.”

A look of sudden understanding overtook Cullen’s features for a brief moment. 

“The Iron Bull said the same thing when I asked for his opinion on it,” he admitted. “You two share a very special bond.”

Krem threw his gaze to the ground. There was no use in continuing to pretend that his relationship with Bull was purely platonic. The attack had rendered so many things— once extremely important— totally inconsequential. 

“Let me have a minute with him,” Krem finally said. 

Cullen patted him on the shoulder. 

“Of course,” he said, supportively. 

Krem was then left alone with Bull in the glade. And Krem forced his legs to bring him to the giant tree where Bull stood. He stopped just short of being able to look inside the grave. And Bull slowly turned to take in the scene of Krem and Dorian and the horse. 

“I should have blindfolded you,” Bull sighed.

It was a better greeting than he deserved. 

“It might have bought you fifteen more minutes,” Krem responded with brutal honesty. 

Bull considered that, and then he leaned down to pick up a dirty, battered shovel. 

“Fill the grave,” he said, handing it off to Krem. “Your last sworn duty to her.”

Then Bull went to check up on Dorian. 

Krem quietly mustered his courage and stepped forward. And just has he had feared, the Inquisitor rested on a bed of flowers six feet below him. Three red blooms on her dress showed where the arrows had cut her down. Her bow and quiver— seemingly recovered from the armory— were both at her side. 

Krem forced himself to face it, unblinkingly. 

Then he set himself to his work. 

The tears came slowly and silently, and Krem felt completely empty once he was done burying the Inquisitor at her final resting place. Every part of him felt like it had been shoveled in with the cold dirt. And at the end of it, Krem quietly sat at the edge of the simple monument that he had built to the fallen leader of the Inquisition. 

After some time, Bull wordlessly joined him, and they sat in wake for what felt like hours. 

“I don’t understand,” Krem finally said, his voice a painful rasp. “Why didn’t she run? Why didn’t she escape? She could have opened a portal, and—“

“A captain goes down with their ship, Krem,” Bull said, simply. “It’s what a good leader does.”

Krem shook his head, adamantly. 

“She could have found someone,” Krem insisted. “Anyone under the Inquisition’s banner would have given their life to protect her. Why did she go off on her own like that? Why didn’t she—?”

Then Krem was struck by a chilling realization. 

“You were there,” he stated, coldly. “You were _right there_ and you left her to die.”

Bull stiffened. Then he reached out and put his hand on Krem’s shoulder to calm him. 

“Krem, that’s not—“

But he wasn’t able to finish. 

Krem swiftly grabbed Bull by the harness and kneed him hard in the stomach. Krem heard the air leave Bull’s lungs in a great rush and acted on it. Krem used his whole body to shove Bull onto his back— onto the freshly packed soil of the Inquisitor’s grave— and straddled him around his barrel chest. Then he captured Bull’s throat in a merciless, two-handed stranglehold. 

“You _abandoned_ her,” Krem said through his teeth. “After _everything_ she did for us!”

Skyhold was gone. 

The Inquisitor was gone. 

Sacrificed for less than nothing. 

A great wave of animosity crashed over Krem and he pushed his full weight down on Bull’s throat. Bull grabbed Krem’s forearms out of instinct, but he didn’t fight back. 

“You could have _saved_ her,” Krem growled as Bull’s face turned red and sweaty under his grip. “But all you cared about was running and saving yourself! You sorry, _worthless_ —!”

Krem took the full force of a sudden side tackle and was violently thrown off of Bull. Cullen had a knee in Krem’s back and Krem’s hands captured in a backwards hold after a single roll across the grass.

Krem heard Bull force down a loud rattle of a breath— coughing and sputtering from the life being squeezed out of him— and it slammed Krem back to his better senses. 

“There will be no more needless loss of life,” Cullen said, roughly shoving Krem into the ground. “Not while I still stand.”

Krem was breathing hard— wracked with anger and sorrow and a need to take it out on the entire world for letting all of this happen. 

“It’s all his fault!” Krem screamed into the dirt. “She'd still be alive if he had just—!”

“We all could have done more, Krem,” Cullen retorted. “But we didn’t. And now we all must live with the consequences.”

“ _Cullen_.” Bull’s hard, unremitting voice cut through the space between them. He dragged himself to his knees and took several shallow gulps of air. “This wasn’t part of the plan,” he gasped. “We need to tell him the truth.”

Cullen suddenly spun on Bull. 

“But the Inquisitor—!” 

“—is no longer with us,” Bull interrupted him. “Krem is not our enemy, Cullen.” Then Bull slowly massaged his neck and got to his feet. “And he deserves to know the truth.”

Krem went still and calm as that statement settled on him like ash after forest fire.

The truth.

Then he heard the embittered voice of someone approaching them. 

“The maidservant.”

Krem forced his head to the side and spotted Dorian’s expensive boots as the bruised mage kneeled in front of him. 

“What?” Krem blurted out. 

“The _Haunted_ series,” Dorian replied. “Book seven. The maidservant killed the queen.”

What was left of the wild energy in Krem washed out of him in an instant, like water down a drain. 

“I deserved that,” he admitted. 

Dorian stood and crossed his arms over his chest. 

“It’s the least of what you deserve,” he said quite matter-of-factly. Then he turned his glare to Cullen and Bull. “Now help me make a fire and we can all discuss this mess like _civilized_ men.”


	16. Of Bigger Fish to Fry

With tensions still running high, it was agreed that Cullen and Dorian would make camp while Bull and Krem searched for food. 

“I agree that it would be best for Krem to take a _long walk_ ,” Dorian had bitterly told Bull, “but wouldn’t he just cause more trouble for you?”

“Don’t worry, _kadan_ ,” Bull had reassured him. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

And so, after grabbing their weapons, Bull and Krem followed a small stream through the forest to a place where they could fish for some lunch. 

“I’m… sorry for choking you,” Krem awkwardly said with his head down as they walked together. “I don’t know what came over me.”

Bull took a long moment to respond, and when Krem glanced up, there was an unexpected smirk on his face.

“It got me half hard,” Bull responded. “I just hope that Cullen didn’t notice.”

It was the last thing that Krem was expecting him to say. 

“Are you serious?” he exclaimed. 

Bull looked back at him— sidelong— with a serious expression on his face. 

“Is that a problem?” he asked. 

Krem felt his face grow warm out of nowhere. 

“No!” he said, louder than necessary. “I mean— It’s just— I didn’t know you were into—!”

Krem’s face went red hot, and he hastened his pace to hide it. 

But Bull laughed out loud and rushed after him. 

“I’m just joking, Krem,” he said and clapped him on the back. “What’s a little choking out between friends, am I right?”

Krem shoved Bull away as they walked, but he couldn’t help but smile. 

“You dumbass,” he said. “Stop making it weird.”

But Krem would be lying if he said he wasn’t starting to feel just a little bit better. 

‘ _Whatever you need_.’ That’s what Bull had said. 

“I did things that I’m not proud of when I was mourning you,” Bull reminded him. “I’d be a hypocrite if I held it against you.”

Krem went quiet at that. 

“That was different,” he pointed out. “You didn’t lose me.”

That seemed to unsettle Bull, and Krem forced himself to lighten up. 

“But thank you,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

There were a lot of things still up in the air with everything that had happened in the attack, but Krem kept in mind that Bull had promised to tell him the truth. And Krem trusted Bull enough to believe that he’d do so once they returned to camp. But as for right now, Krem decided that he needed to work on finding some peace of mind before he could handle the finer details of the Inquisitor’s death.

As they continued to walk through the woods, Krem was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he didn’t notice that Bull had led him away from the stream that they had been following. 

“Wait,” he muttered. “Where are we?”

Bull gently shushed him with a finger at his lips, and Krem automatically went silent. 

The two of them went into a stealthy crouch, and Bull pushed the undergrowth aside to reveal a giant dragon nest in the distance. 

“We’re going hunting for something a lot bigger than fish,” Bull whispered. 

It filled Krem with a buzzing excitement as he readied Solas’ staff for a fight. Similarly, Bull tightened his grip on Krem’s maul, and they both snuck out of the forest and into the open field. 

The area was riddled with frost-flecked corpses in various forms of damaged armor. It appeared as if Bull and Krem weren’t the first ones to face this particular dragon. And as all of the evidence suggested, an adult ice dragon was resting on a plateau just up ahead. Its sapphire scales glittered in the late morning sun, and it sent Krem’s heart pattering anxiously in his chest. 

“Ready to fry a giant lizard?” Bull asked. 

An adventurous grin spread across Krem’s face. 

“Absolutely,” he said. 

The two of them moved up— their slow footfalls in perfect synchronization— and after some time, they were at the top of the plateau. The giant dragon was fast asleep with a frozen halla skeleton sticking out of its fangs. Krem could sense an unnatural chill in the air even as they approached it. 

Then Bull raised up Krem’s maul, and swung it in a wide, powerful arc. It connected with a loud crack against the dragon’s skull. 

The creature let out an enraged, agonized roar, and reared up on its legs. Its jaws opened wide and a stream of icy wind escaped from its toothy maw. A heavy tail whipped around and nearly hit Krem, but he rolled to the side just in time. 

Bull had landed another powerful hit on the dragon’s neck before Krem could get upright. 

After getting to his feet, Krem forced his stance into something that resembled a mage and held out his staff. With his brow furrowed in concentration, Krem willed whatever energy was inside himself to manifest as controlled lightning. And after several seconds of building his focus, long bolts of black electricity connected with the dragon’s thick hide. 

A self-satisfied grin spread between Krem’s ears at the sight of it. 

But the monstrous ice dragon was much more concerned with Bull’s bone-breaking blows than Krem’s novice-level magic. 

The dragon’s fangs snapped closed next to Bull’s leg, and Bull kicked the dragon away with a valiant shout. 

Krem widened his stance and took up his staff in both hands. 

“Come on, Solas,” he growled under his breath. “How do I increase the power on this thing?”

But there was no answer. 

So Krem took in a deep breath through his nose and directed energy down his arms like Dorian had taught him. But instead of lightly pushing open that door inside of him, he kicked it open. He let out a spirited war cry and the end of his staff crackled with a surge of power. The voltage increased in an instant, and the dragon’s body buckled in pain. 

Krem kept up the attack as long as he was able, and after a last, solid hit from Bull, the ice dragon collapsed in a lifeless heap. 

With a triumphant chuckle, Krem’s legs went to water, and he fell to one knee. 

“Krem!” Bull’s concerned voice instantly rang out. 

“I’m good!” Krem weakly shouted back, trying to catch his breath. “Just… a little tired.”

Bull was at his side in a matter of seconds, and Krem let Bull help him to his feet. 

“We did it,” Krem said with a huge smile. “We took down a fucking dragon.”

And Bull smiled back at him like the sun. 

“Fuck yeah, we did,” he responded. “Now help me harvest some of this meat.”

The two of them then spent the next hour butchering the dragon for its best cuts of meat. And once they were done— with succulent tenderloins and thick dragon belly strips all wrapped in clean leaves and piled high— Krem voiced a thought that had suddenly occurred to him. 

“So, um... back in the throne room,” he muttered. “When you kissed me in front of all those people… how did you know that I would kiss you back?”

Bull turned to look at him.

“I didn’t,” he shrugged. “Why do you ask?”

And with adrenaline from the fight still rushing in his veins, Krem grabbed Bull around his harness and tugged him close. 

“I want you to do it again,” he said. 

Bull gave Krem an adoring smile, and he did.


	17. Of Vices and Virtues

Once Bull and Krem returned to camp, Bull went next to the Inquisitor’s grave to discuss something with Cullen, leaving Krem to join Dorian at the campfire to try to make amends. 

Dorian was sitting on one of four log benches that Cullen had set up at their camp, and as Krem approached, Dorian considered him out of the corner of his eye. Krem saw that Dorian still had an extremely sour look on his face and nervously cleared his throat. 

“We brought back some food,” Krem announced as he took a seat next to Dorian. 

Then he piled up the leaf-wrapped dragon meat on a large, flat rock near the fire. 

“Hopefully I’ll be able to eat it with my bruised jaw,” Dorian whinged. “If only there was some way we could have avoided that.”

Krem shifted uncomfortably at Dorian’s unhidden animosity as he wiped his bloody hands clean on the pant legs of his knight-captain uniform. 

“Here,” Krem said and promptly searched for something in his jacket’s besom pocket. “This should help.”

Krem pulled out a blue dragon scale and handed it off to Dorian. It was still cold to the touch. 

Dorian looked like he wanted to refuse. But he took the scale and held it to his face anyway. 

“Now is when you’re supposed to offer an apology for punching me in the face,” Dorian irreverently said. 

Krem awkwardly rubbed at his bicep. 

“I’m sorry for punching you,” Krem responded. 

Dorian was silent for several moments, but then he let out a tired sigh. 

“ _Loyalty_ , Cremisius,” he snapped. “You and your damned loyalty.”

It was as if Dorian had struck him through a chink in his armor. Dorian had been right about Krem making a bad habit out of going too far for others. Dorian had even tried to warn him about the danger of it back at Skyhold. And in the end, Dorian had been the one to pay for Krem’s hubris. 

It wracked Krem with unexpected guilt. 

“I know,” Krem relented. “You have every right to be angry at me.”

Dorian averted his cold eyes away from Krem to manage his angst. And before things could get too uncomfortable, Bull and Cullen wordlessly returned to the campfire together. 

After Bull cleaned the dragon meat with one of Cullen’s knives, Krem cooked them over the open campfire. It was an effort mostly completed in contemplative silence. And that silence extended half an hour into them chowing down on the golden-brown dragon fillets. 

“I didn’t know you were such a good cook, Krem,” Cullen finally said. “As far as unseasoned dragon meat goes, it’s pretty damn good.”

Krem stoked the cook fire with the point of Hawke’s shortsword, keeping his gaze on the crackling flames. 

“Someone has to keep Bull from burning all of our food to a crisp,” Krem muttered. “It might as well be me.”

Cullen’s expression softened at that. 

“I'm glad that you three still have each other after everything that’s happened,” he said. 

Krem wiped the dragon fat from his mouth with the back of his hand to hide a twinge of some unsightly emotion that passed across his face. 

“Thanks, Commander,” he moodily replied. 

Then it was Cullen’s turn to look troubled. 

“I’m not your commander… or anyone else’s at the moment,” he noted. “But the Inquisitor did make it clear at one point that she wanted me to replace her as Inquisitor in her absence.”

Krem’s chin snapped up at that. 

“ _You_?” he blurted out before he could stop himself. “ _You’ll_ be the new Inquisitor?”

Cullen blinked back at him with a mouth full of dragon tenderloin. 

“I’m next in the line of succession,” he said, swallowing heavily. “And I intend on rebuilding the Inquisition as long as the Maker wills it.”

Inquisitor Cullen. 

It sounded too much like a bad joke. 

Krem must have had a profoundly dumbfounded look on his face because Bull suddenly, purposely cleared his throat to distract from it. 

“On a related note,” Bull spoke up, “I have something to give you, Krem.”

Bull went into his huge pants pocket and retrieved a golden spiral-shaped locket on a long, thin chain. 

“I found it once I recovered the body,” Bull explained. “I think she wanted you to have it.”

Confused and curious in equal measures, Krem reached out to claim the trinket. And in the instant that he touched it, an intoxicating melody played in his mind. But it did more than that. He felt the otherworldly song touch his very spirit. 

It was as if the Maker was singing to him.

It promised him everything that he wanted.

But Krem was suddenly snapped out of his trance as Dorian snatched the locket out of his hand and tried to open it. 

“It’s locked,” Dorian frustratedly stated, completely oblivious to the hypnotic effect that it had on Krem. 

“Yeah,” Bull muttered. “We noticed.”

“Then break it open,” Dorian told Bull. 

“We tried,” Cullen said. “It’s magically protected.”

“Let me hold on to it,” Krem demanded. 

All three of his companions were startled by the urgency in his voice and Krem tempered himself. 

“It’s… what the Inquisitor wanted, right?” he said. 

Then a dark epiphany flashed across Cullen’s face. 

“Krem,” he started. “Did something happen when you held the locket?”

Krem hesitated. 

And Cullen took the locket away from Dorian, guarding it against his chest. 

“I know that look,” Cullen said, standing up. “I know what’s in the locket.”

Krem didn’t take his eye off of Cullen’s hand. 

“Lyrium,” Dorian realized out loud. 

The word rendered them all speechless. 

“You heard the song,” Cullen said, his voice slightly shaking. “But then why can’t I hear it?”

“A locket with lyrium in it?” Dorian exclaimed. “Why would the Inquisitor have something like that?”

“And why did she want Krem to have it?” Bull attested. 

Krem almost couldn’t find his voice. 

“Maybe I can get it open,” he choked. 

“Not a chance,” Cullen said. “I need to do some tests and make sure—“

“She wanted me to have it!” Krem angrily shouted and got to his feet. 

Bull filled his vision in a fraction of a second and put his hands firmly on Krem’s shoulders. 

“And you’ll have it,” Bull said in a calming voice. “But not now. Not until we know it’s safe.”

“When did you ever give a damn about ‘ _safe_ ’?” Krem said and shoved Bull away from him. 

Cullen backstepped with a look of concern. 

Then Dorian approached Krem and gently held his face with both hands. 

“Listen to me, Krem,” Dorian said, his eyes bright with consternation. “What do you hear right now?”

Krem blinked, his breath coming easier now. 

“I just hear you,” he honestly said. 

The entrancing song had passed, and the spell that it cast on a Krem was gone with it. 

“Good,” Dorian said. 

Cullen had since begun hastily walking away. 

“I should leave,” he said, quickly pocketing the Inquisitor’s locket. “I need to go cityside to regroup with Leliana, anyway.”

Krem panicked at that, but Dorian held him still. 

“I’ll go with you,” Bull offered. “But first I need to ask Krem something in private.”

Cullen just nodded and went to wait for him at the tree line. 

Dorian stepped aside as Bull approached them. 

“Krem,” Bull said. “You reacted badly to hearing about Cullen being the new Inquisitor. Why?”

There was no antagonism or disparagement in his voice. Just a genuine, respectful curiosity. 

Krem averted his eye from Bull. 

“Because he’s too much like me,” he admitted. 

“Who would you choose, then?” Dorian asked him. “Who do you think should be the next Inquisitor if not Cullen?”

The question dug deeper than Krem had expected. It burrowed into him and planted a painful seed in his chest. 

He hadn’t even given it any thought. He’d had no reason to do so. 

And yet the answer was clear as day to Krem. 

“The Champion of Kirkwall,” he said without hesitation. “I’d choose Garrett Hawke.”


	18. Of Picking Up the Pieces

Armed with just his sword, Krem took his time riding back to Skyhold to scavenge some basic supplies. He had tried to talk Bull out of leaving with Cullen, but ultimately, Krem couldn’t fault him for prioritizing the safety of the person who was responsible for rebuilding the Inquisition. 

“You said you'd tell me the truth,” Krem had reminded Bull before he left camp. 

“I’ll be back by early tomorrow morning, and then I’ll tell you everything,” Bull had responded. “You have my word, Krem.”

And so Bull took the rest of the cooked dragon fillets to hand them out to any hungry refugees that he met along the way and departed with Cullen. And with Dorian still visibly upset with Krem, he opted to go do some scavenging to give Dorian his space. 

‘ _Maybe if I can find and return something of Dorian’s from Skyhold as an act of good faith, it’ll start to make things less awkward between us,_ ’ Krem mused.

And it surprised Krem at how much he wanted to rebuild the bridge that he’d burned with that punch. Because if that broken bridge led to Dorian, it was a task that Krem was willing to seriously undertake. 

Krem’s stolen horse slowly trotted over the drawbridge to the lower courtyard of what was left of the Inquisition’s hold, and Krem was relieved to find it completely abandoned. And as Krem tied up his steed in a clean patch of grass and made his way through the empty throne hall, it became obvious that anything of worth that hadn’t been nailed down (along with a few particularly valuable things that had been nailed down) had been pilfered already.

Krem trudged past the broken boards of destroyed long tables towards the Inquisitor’s penthouse, and he unsurprisingly found the bedroom torn apart from top to bottom. A tiny, empty jewelry box had been thrown into the corner of the room. An armoire dresser had been vacated and a hole kicked into the back of it. The sight of it all made Krem sick to his stomach. 

Thankfully, all of the bedsheets had been left untouched. The comforter had been thrown to the floor, but everything else was pristine. It would definitely help make their campsite feel a little bit cozier. 

Krem went to claim what he could find of the bed set, and when he pulled back the first layer of cotton coverings, his heart skipped a beat. The old blanket that he had crocheted for the Inquisitor years ago was tucked away on top of the contour sheet. He had expected her to keep it locked away in a closet somewhere, but she had slept with it up until the very end. 

It was too much to bear for Krem. 

A loud sob suddenly tore from his chest, and he screamed out of utter anguish. He clutched the blanket against himself and dropped to the floor next to the bed as the tears came unchecked. And after wrapping the blanket around himself, Krem finally let himself grieve. He put his head between his knees and cried in mourning until he had exhausted himself. 

But Krem’s solitude was interrupted by the sound of something heavy falling just outside the door. Krem snapped to alertness in no time flat, but fleeing footfalls rang out before he could stop whoever had been lurking in the shadows. 

“Hey!” Krem shouted, still congested with snot and tears. “Get back here!”

Krem got to his feet, letting the blanket slide to the ground, and took chase. 

Glancing to the side, Krem found what had fallen. It was a heavy wooden pedestal that probably held an urn of some sort before the attack. He then looked back up just in time to spot a lanky, humanoid figure ducking down a hallway. And he didn’t spare a second thought before running after them. 

Krem sprinted through the narrow corridor and anxious whispers filled the space around him. He followed the echoing voice to its source and found the interloper sitting on a table in an otherwise unfurnished room. 

It was Cole. 

“Downcast. Discouraged. Dying. You ask if your lover got away. He didn’t. But I tell you he did.”

Krem entered the room as one would approach a cornered and frightened deer. Cole was rambling with his head in his hands and his trademark hat nowhere to be seen. His dirty blond hair stuck out in all directions and his gaunt face was still smeared with dried blood. 

‘ _At least it seems like the blood isn’t his_ ,’ Krem grimly thought. 

Krem traversed the space between them and slowly lowered himself on the table beside him. 

“I’m sorry I yelled at you, Cole,” Krem said in a hushed voice and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I’m glad to see that you’re alright.”

“The screams wouldn’t stop,” Cole said, his voice trembling. “I thought they would go on forever. Yours was the last scream that I heard. Searching. Scrambling. Suffering. You hoped against hope that you’d find her sitting in bed as if none of this had happened. You found a piece of yourself that she had cherished instead.”

Krem felt his stomach clench. He was more open to the idea of allying with spirits than Bull, but Cole’s intrusive brand of empathy tended to cut the deepest when people least expected it. 

“Cole, where is your hat?” Krem said in an attempt to distract him. “Did you lose it?”

Cole’s face went pensive again. 

“Three brothers,” he replied. “Hardened, hungry, hateful. They raised their voices and their fists. They didn’t need to do that. I would have given it to them if they had only asked nicely. They tossed it amongst each other as they left. Their laughter was cruel, but it was still laughter.”

Krem bit the inside of his cheek. 

“You’re angry at them,” Cole said. “Don’t be angry. There are millions of other hats in the world. And meeting a new hat will give me something to look forward to in these dark times.”

Krem shook his head to clear it. 

“Cullen and Bull have gone to the city,” he said. “You should really meet up with them and the other refugees. They’ll watch after you, Cole.”

But Cole looked troubled. 

“Loud, lingering, lost,” he muttered. “Perhaps one day I will meet with our friends again. But as for now, I need to travel on my own.”

That decision alarmed Krem, and he was sure that Cole felt his concern. 

“If the city is too much for you, then come travel with me and Dorian,” he offered. “We have food and shelter and—“

“Your kindness is a wonderful gift all on its own,” Cole told him with a small, fragile smile. “I do hope that one day we will both find peace again.”

And in the space of a single blink, Cole was gone.


	19. Of Pain and Pleasure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dorian’s magical ass doesn’t need lube because this is a work of fiction and because I said so. That being said, please make sure to use water-based lube on your partner for penetration so you don’t hurt them.

Krem collected the Inquisitor’s comforter, his handmade blanket, a length of rope, some books from the library, some iron rods from the armory to help build a tent, and several other essentials before heading back to the campsite. He only stopped to let his horse get rehydrated at a nearby creek and was lucky enough to not come across any enemies on the road. 

Once he returned to camp, Dorian was nowhere to be found. Both of their staves were gone and there was no sign of a struggle. And so Krem decided that there was no point in worrying about it. The way that he saw it, Dorian either went after Bull and Cullen or he would return to camp before it got too late. 

After he tied up the horse, Krem used the time alone to build a tent out of the metal rods and the comforter that he had gotten from Skyhold. With his mind kept busy, he was able to keep his emotions in check. And once his work was done, he stood back to admire it. It certainly wasn’t the prettiest tent in Thedas, but it would do in a pinch. 

“Hello again,” Dorian chirped as he emerged from the tree line. 

With Dorian’s hands full of leaf-wrapped fish and their two staves tucked under his arms, Krem rushed forward to give him a hand. 

“You went fishing?” Krem asked, trying to make pleasant conversation. “What kind of hook and line did you use?”

“I’m a mage, Krem,” Dorian tiredly answered. “I used magic.”

Krem felt like slapping his own forehead. 

“Oh…” he lamely muttered. “Right.”

It was becoming increasingly difficult for Krem to ignore the butterflies in his stomach. 

“I got you something,” he suddenly exclaimed. “It isn’t much, but I thought you’d like to have something familiar out here.”

Walking faster than necessary, Krem retrieved three large books from inside the tent and handed them off to Dorian. 

“They were in the atrium library,” Krem explained. “It was just about the only room in Skyhold that was left untouched.”

Dorian opened the necromancy book that he had been browsing through several days ago and a small smile appeared on his face. 

“I appreciate the gesture,” he responded. “And the tent that you built is… quite adequate.”

Krem nervously rubbed his hands together and his gaze wandered to the Inquisitor’s grave. Then Dorian touched the side of Krem’s face to steal his attention. 

“You keep looking over there as if she’ll come crawling out of the dirt to join us at the fire,” he sorely noted. 

Krem averted his eye to the ground and gently touched Dorian’s hand on his face. 

“It’s just… hard to believe she’s actually gone,” he admitted. “I really thought she’d outlive us all.”

Then Krem’s eye wandered to Dorian’s book and his pulse quickened. 

“Could you… use your necromancy to bring her back?” he asked in a quiet voice. “I mean, if you studied enough—“

Dorian’s hand suddenly fell away from Krem’s face, and Krem grabbed it out of the air and held it tight. 

“Whatever I brought back, it wouldn’t be her,” Dorian said, avoiding Krem’s gaze. “Necromancy would animate her body, but it wouldn’t bring back her spirit.”

Krem hung his head but nodded in response. 

“I understand,” he said. “I’m sorry I asked.”

The two of them fell into a somber silence as they relit the cook fire and prepared their dinner by it. With the crackling flame separating them, they kept to themselves for a long time. 

“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” Dorian finally said, breaking the silence between them. 

Krem looked up from the fish he was deboning with a confused expression. 

“What’s ironic?” he asked. 

Dorian couldn’t keep a smirk off his chin. 

“Between myself and Bull,” he replied, “you haven’t gone without a mentor for more than a month or so.”

Krem mulled that over as he poked at the fire with his sword. 

“Is that what you are to me now?” he mumbled. 

Dorian went starry-eyed with an unspoken thought. 

“You tell me,” he said. “What am I to you, Krem?”

Krem shifted in place, his face growing unnaturally warm even next to the fire. 

“You expect me to answer that when you’re sitting there shirtless?” he responded. 

“It isn’t a difficult question,” Dorian said. “Unless my marvelous physique has you so easily distracted—“

“You’re Bull’s _amatus_ ,” Krem quickly said. “His _kadan_.”

Dorian’s moustache quirked. 

“That’s what I am to Bull,” he replied. “What am I to you?”

Krem’s grip tightened on the hilt of Hawke’s sword as he searched for an answer that wouldn’t come. 

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I haven’t really thought about it, I guess.”

But then a strange curiosity came over Krem.

“If it’s such an easy question,” he retorted, “then what am I to you?”

Dorian got a mischievous glint in his ocean blue eyes, and after tossing the rest of his fish into the fire, he sidled over to Krem. Then he took up Krem’s chin in his slender fingers and kissed him under the clear night sky. 

“A pain in my ass,” Dorian answered and kissed him again. 

Krem quickly lost himself to Dorian’s games, capturing and recapturing his mouth with his own too many times to count. And once their foreplay had escalated to indecency, Krem grabbed Dorian’s hand and brought him inside the tent. Then Krem leaned against one of the tent poles and pulled Dorian into his lap. 

“The last time we did this,” Dorian said, already breathless, “you called out Bull’s name.”

Krem was stroking Dorian’s cock through his pants as they kissed. 

“I won’t this time,” Krem said, distractedly. 

Dorian leaned back against Krem and intertwined their fingers at his side. 

“Then say my name every time you think of me,” Dorian told him. “I want to hear it.”

Krem’s hand tightened in Dorian’s.

“Dorian,” he recited as their tongues slid against each other. 

“Dorian,” he repeated as a hand glided through Krem’s messy hair. 

“ _Dorian_ ,” he moaned as the bulge in his hand got harder with each passing touch. 

Thoroughly aroused, Krem repositioned himself between Dorian’s legs and pulled off Dorian’s trousers. Then went Dorian’s undershorts, and his bulging erection leapt free. Krem caught it in one hand and wasted no time in eagerly pumping away at it with his mouth.

It drew an excited sound out of Dorian like sweet water from a well. 

“Maker’s glory, Krem…” he groaned as he enthusiastically bucked into Krem’s mouth. 

Krem’s hands ran up the outside of Dorian’s thighs and cupped his firm ass. Holding him still, he let out a low moan as he gulped at Dorian’s thick shaft. 

“You want it?” Krem asked as he came up for air and continued to pump at Dorian with his hand. “You want me in you, Dorian?”

“Give it to me,” Dorian pleaded. 

A bright sheen of sweat was the only thing covering Dorian’s perfect chest. 

Krem got down on his stomach and gave Dorian’s puckered hole a heavy lap from tongue. And Dorian’s back arched with pleasure. 

“Oh, _fuck_ …” Dorian swore and groped blindly for Krem’s hand. 

Krem reached out and intertwined their fingers again as he flitted the tip of his tongue on the warm place that led inside Dorian. 

“Put your fingers in me,” Dorian begged, his voice thin and desperate. 

Krem let go of Dorian’s shaft, wet an index finger in his mouth, and slowly plunged it into Dorian. 

“You like that?” Krem teased him. 

Dorian nodded furiously and bit his lower lip. 

Krem massaged his finger in and out of Dorian’s tight ass, and when there was room, he added his middle finger. 

“Let’s see how much I can fit in,” Krem said with adventurous excitement. 

Dorian encouraged Krem with a melody of moans as he worked up to his entire fist. 

“How does that feel?” Krem checked in with him. 

“Like you have your entire hand in my ass,” Dorian said with half a laugh. “Keep going or I’ll lose my goddamn mind.”

Krem twisted his wrist with each gratifying thrust, and Dorian screwed his eyes shut to brace himself. Krem let go of Dorian’s hand and instead pumped Dorian’s foreskin with the tips of his fingers. 

Then Krem got an idea. 

“How about I shock you a little?” Krem suggested. “Right on your cock?”

Dorian let out a happy, surprised noise and dizzily looked up at him. 

“Don’t overdo it,” Dorian advised him. 

Krem focused himself and gently pushed open that door to his magical power. And in no time, tiny black sparks skipped up the length of Dorian’s shaft and across the head of it. 

It brought out an obscene, undulating groan from deep within Dorian’s chest. Then, barely having the breath to do so, he announced his mounting orgasm in Tevene. 

Krem halted his electricity, withdrew his fist, and pumped at Dorian with both hands. 

“Maker, Dorian,” he panted. “You’re so fucking gorgeous when you’re about to cum.”

That pushed Dorian over the edge, and Krem caught four quick spurts of cum on his tongue. 

And for several hot and heavy moments, their labored breathing was the only sound that filled the tent. Then Dorian draped an arm over his face and let out a satisfied chuckle.

“ _Fasta vass_ ,” Dorian swore. “I needed that.”

Krem climbed up and planted a rough kiss in the crook of Dorian’s neck. 

“You were right,” Krem joked. “I really am a pain in your magical ass.”


	20. Of Opposing Viewpoints

A chill passed over Krem’s neck as he awoke early the next morning, and he instinctively pulled Dorian closer against him. Dorian’s floral perfume filled him in a rush and Krem pressed his face against Dorian’s upper back to savor it. 

Then the sound of the tent door snapping shut suddenly brought Krem to alertness. He shot upright to locate any danger, but the only person in the tent with him was Dorian. 

Krem let out a groggy sound and swiped at his eye to get it working. Then he pulled the blanket back up so it protected Dorian’s shoulders from the cold and went to investigate the disturbance. 

It was Bull who had apparently returned from his trip into town. 

Three cheap suitcases were piled up to the side along with another horse that was tied up to a nearby tree. And a less-than-pristine battle ax was propped up with their other weapons. Krem wasn’t sure if it had all been donated to their group or stolen, but it hardly mattered. 

After dropping himself onto a log bench with his back facing the tent, Bull picked up a tiny bottle of pink nail polish that had been set to the side. And feigning disinterest, he began to paint his nails as Krem circled the campfire to get a better look at him. 

“Um… how did the journey go?” Krem asked. 

Bull held out his hand to inspect his own neatly-garnished nails. 

“Killed a few mercs, saved a few civilians,” he muttered unexcitedly. “You want in on this? I brought you a bottle.”

Krem thought about protesting, but he let out a sigh and took a seat next to Bull anyway. 

“You got black?” he muttered. 

Bull went into his pants pocket and tossed him a tiny bottle of black nail varnish. Krem deftly caught and uncorked the thing just in time for Dorian to arrive. 

“Good morning, _amatus_ ,” Dorian said, running a hand across Bull’s shoulders. Then he slowly raked a hand through Krem’s hair. “And good morning to you, Honey Bear.”

Krem’s nail brush swiped over his knuckle out of surprise, and Bull smirked to himself. 

“That good, huh?” Bull asked. 

Krem inwardly groaned. 

“It was just a little… late-night stress relief,” Krem floundered as he licked his thumb to shape up his nail. “And we are _not_ doing pet names.”

“Oh, come on, Krem,” Dorian teased him. “You can call me Sweet Pea. It’ll be adorable.”

Krem let out a harsh noise that only vaguely resembled a laugh. 

“Absolutely not,” Krem said. 

Dorian just chuckled to himself and sat down next to Bull. Then he watched Krem and Bull with delighted curiosity— as if he stumbled across two nugs that had learned to take flight. 

“I’ve never seen you two with your nails painted,” he muttered, genuinely surprised. 

“We used to do it all the time before we joined the Inquisition,” Bull told him. “There’s no need to worry about keeping up appearances when you’re self-employed.”

“Self-employed?” Dorian echoed. “You mean—?”

“Cullen said it’ll be awhile before things go back to business as usual,” Bull said. “A week of tending to the injured and finding housing for the displaced. Another week of rallying the troops. He said he’d be lucky to have a new Inquisition headquarters set up any time soon.”

Dorian’s moustache twitched. 

“So we aren’t going to help Cullen rebuild?” he surmised. 

Bull made a low, dissatisfied sound. 

“Skyhold was _ransacked_ ,” Bull answered him, matter-of-factly. “Cullen has zero funds in place— no line of credit for soldiers or conscripts. So for now, we’re on our own.”

Dorian didn’t look convinced. 

“You go where the money goes, is that it?” he asked with a tinge of disapproval. 

“We aren’t charity workers, Dorian,” Krem said. “And I’m not going to be an unpaid laborer for the next six months if I can help it.”

Dorian narrowed his eyes in an irritated way. 

“I’d expect this kind of talk from Bull, but not you, Krem,” he professed. “You’d truly leave Cullen twisting in the wind just like that?”

That touched a nerve in Krem, and he glared back at Dorian.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” Krem said. “I don’t owe Cullen a damn thing. He isn’t a king. He isn’t even a Templar. And to be perfectly honest, the thought of him sitting on the Inquisitor’s throne makes me madder the more I think about it.”

“Cullen will have to make a name for himself just like the Inquisitor did,” Bull added. “And he’s going to find out real quick that the Inquisitor wasn’t some air-headed royal whose title and influence can be so easily inherited.”

Krem watched as Dorian bit back something ugly that he wanted to say. And with an unhappy sound, Dorian turned around and went back inside the tent without another spoken word. 

With a frustrated sigh, Krem got up to go reason with Dorian, but Bull intercepted him first. 

“Sit with me for one more minute,” Bull said. “You said before that you wanted the truth about what happened that night in the throne room. Now I’m going to give it to you.”

Krem lingered on his feet long enough to watch the tent flap shut behind Dorian. Then he slowly returned to his seat to hear what Bull had to say. 

“I’m listening,” Krem said. 

Then Bull took in a deep breath. 

“The Inquisitor designed a plan to fake her own death,” he professed. “The assassin wasn’t an assassin. She was a former student of yours. And it was her job paralyze the Inquisitor, not to kill her. The Inquisitor told us to make it look good— to leave no room for doubt. But then Florianne showed up, uninvited. And after that, nothing went according to plan.”

Krem could feel himself shaking. He gripped at the fabric of his pants to hold himself back. 

“ _Why_?” The word crossed a field of broken glass in Krem’s throat to make itself heard. 

Bull nervously rubbed his hands together. 

“If everyone thought that the Inquisitor was dead, it’d be a hell of a lot easier for her to investigate the plight of the Diviners and the cult that has sought to keep them underfoot,” Bull said. “She intended on going into hiding and leaving Inquisition matters to Cullen. She said…” Bull hesitated. “She said she couldn’t take the loneliness of being the Inquisitor anymore.”

That dredged up a memory in Krem— of him and the Inquisitor talking together in the Fade. She had told him that she’d felt lonely. But Krem hadn’t realized just how much carrying the Inquisition on her shoulders had been hurting her all this time. And she had finally collapsed under the weight of it. 

“She had _us_ ,” Krem said, shaking his head. “You and me and Josephine. Cullen and Leliana, too. How could she have been so lonely when any of us would have—“

“Loneliness and leadership are two sides of the same coin, Krem,” Bull patiently said. “I tried to stand with her when I could— we all did. But isolation is what happens when you have no equal. And years of isolation can drive a person to desperation.”

A distressing thought bubbled up in Krem’s mind, and he was afraid of voicing it for what response he’d receive. But he had to know. 

“Was the kiss part of the plan?” he asked. 

Bull furrowed his brow. 

“I was told to distract you,” Bull confessed. “To lower your guard. It was a direct order.”

Krem felt a lump forming in his throat, and he stood up in his haste to hide it. 

“You _bastard_ ,” he swore, his voice breaking.

Krem tried to leave before he lost his composure entirely, but Bull caught him by the wrist. 

“Never again,” Bull promised with intensity. An unmistakable thread of regret ran through his words. “No more following orders. Not if it means hurting you. I swear it to you, Krem.”

Krem blinked away tears.

He couldn’t even find it in himself to be angry.

It just _hurt_.

After reaching for the spiritual power inside him, a shock of black electricity surged down Krem’s arm and made contact with the giant hand around his wrist. Bull instantly let go of Krem with a surprised shout. And Krem took a defensive step back.

“I’m leaving,” he told Bull. “Don’t follow after me.”

Then Krem walked away from Bull, his legs feeling as heavy as iron. And after grabbing his maul and his staff, Krem left the camp.


	21. Of Cleanliness and Godliness

A blush swept up Krem’s back, over his neck, and across his face as he retreated further into the woods. His whole body radiated with an emotional heat that threatened to overwhelm him. Embarrassment and disappointment were plaguing him like a thousand stinging insects. And he couldn’t seem to escape it.

So much information was swirling in his head that Krem had to lean back against a tree to try and make sense of it all.

The Inquisitor had tried to fake her death with a paralyzing toxin. But when Bull’s attempts to distract Krem from the plan failed, Krem was hit by the toxin instead and lost consciousness. Then what? Bull grabbed Krem and ran, leaving the Inquisitor to be killed in the ensuing chaos?

Krem threw a fist behind him, hitting the hard bark of the tree with a frustrated grunt.

It didn’t make any goddamn sense.

None of it did.

“What parts of this am I missing?” Krem asked himself. Then his chest ached with a horrible realization. “Bull is keeping secrets again.”

Krem didn’t think that Bull would outright lie to him about something so impactful. Although, he certainly hadn’t given Krem the full truth of the situation. But why? What was there to gain in it? What would even be worth it?

Krem vigorously shook his head to clear it.

“Whatever...” Krem mumbled, deciding to put off pondering it until he had more pieces to put together. “At least Dorian will be happy to have Bull all to himself for a while.”

Krem aimlessly followed the distant sound of moving water until he happened upon a babbling brook. Then he followed the length of the brook to an open clearing with an acre-wide pond. It was a downright picturesque landscape with a rocky cliff face and a gigantic waterfall flowing down from the top of it.

It was the perfect place to take a rest.

‘ _But first_ ,’ he thought, ‘ _I really need to wash up._ ‘

Krem was suddenly, distinctly aware of how strongly he smelled of sex and dragon blood.

After propping up his maul and his staff against a tree, he removed and discarded his uniform beside the pond. He was finally able to check out his knife wound, and he was grateful to find that it was healing up nicely with no signs of infection. Bull had even worked around his binder so that putting it back on wouldn’t be a hassle. But there was still a large hole in it that would have to be mended once Krem had the tools for it.

Krem gingerly lifted his binder over his head and winced as his injured side strained with the effort of it. Then he waded into the pond with his dagger in hand to clean himself up. He carefully snapped the strings of his sutures with the blade and pulled it all out of his flesh.

“Could have been worse,” Krem decided as he rinsed the wound clean. “If Bull didn’t have hands the size of dinner plates, he’d make a decent combat medic.”

After he finished washing up under the waterfall, Krem climbed out of the pond and put on his clothes.

All that was left was to take a break.

“Solas,” he called out under his breath. “We need to talk.”

There was no telepathic response, and so Krem sat up against a tree and closed his eye to get some sleep.

‘ _Well, if you won’t come to me,_ ’ he thought, ‘ _then I’ll go to you._ ”

* * *

After what felt like no time at all, Krem stirred. And when he opened his eye, he saw the exterior remains of an ancient Ferelden temple. Old stone that was engraved with intricate elven designs made up a pathway to a place of worship that hadn’t seen any worshipers in a very long time.

Krem quickly got to his feet and was unsurprised to see Solas standing at the base of a statue of _Fen’harel_ near the temple’s entrance. Krem closed the distance between them and loosely crossed his arms over his chest.

“This is the first time we’ve met somewhere that I didn’t recognize,” Krem noted aloud. “Is this a memory of yours?”

Solas took his sweet time to respond. And when he did, his voice was clipped and rough.

“Not mine,” he answered. “This is Florianne’s memory.”

Krem started with surprise.

“ _What_?” he blurted out and looked around again. “Was she one of your followers?”

Solas slowly shook his head.

“No,” he tersely replied. “Far from it.”

Solas made his way up the temple’s stone steps with his hands folded behind his back, and Krem had little choice but to follow after him.

As they walked, the space between them was loud with unspoken questions.

“Solas...” Krem said. “About the Inquisitor—“

“ _Be silent_.”

Krem’s mouth snapped shut on its own accord the instant Solas ordered it. And it unsettled Krem now more than it did the last time that it happened. Was his body truly not his own?

Solas had stopped walking and took a quiet, calming breath.

“That is not why we are here,” he curtly said. “I have something that I need to show you.”

Solas started walking again, and Krem hesitated for just a moment before following after him.

Once they entered the main vestibule of the temple, Krem could instantly sense that there was something very wrong with this place.

It felt like walking into Skyhold after it had been ransacked and destroyed.

“It’s defiled,” Krem realized out loud. “Solas, why did you bring me—?”

Solas brusquely shushed him and Krem swallowed his questions.

“Patience,” Solas told him. “This access point to Florianne’s memory was not easy to obtain. Trust me when I say that I am not misleading you, Cremisius.”

Krem furrowed his brow with slight disapproval but he didn’t go so far as to argue with him.

“Okay,” he said. “Lead on, Solas.”

Krem was brought to a prayer chamber with portraits of _Fen’harel_ in dynamic poses on each of the walls. But what captured Krem’s attention was the unholy scene playing out in the center of the room.

Three hooded figures enshrouded in black cloaks stood around a tree that Krem remembered from back when Solas was first determining his magical nature. It was a large tree with purple blossoms on shining, golden vines that dangled gracefully to its roots— the same tree from the decorated cards. But something was terribly wrong with it, just like the rest of the temple.

“My anchor to this world,” Solas explained in a lowered voice. “That tree connects me to you and every other mortal on this plane who has been gifted with my magic.”

Krem squinted through the ritualistic darkness to get a better look.

“What are they doing to it?” he asked.

Solas’ mouth hardened into a scowl.

“Corrupting it,” he answered.

Dark magic was siphoned into Solas’ tree from the three figures’ outstretched hands. And Krem felt his spirit react with a dull, throbbing ache.

“I feel it,” Krem groaned, clutching his chest.

It made him want to stop these people from hurting the tree any more than they had.

“This is my main temple,” Solas continued. “It is not theirs to poison and pollute with this blasphemous blood magic.”

Krem grimaced.

“And you want me to stop them?” he asked.

Solas turned away from the ritual.

“It’s too heavily guarded,” he said. “A direct assault would be suicide.”

Krem smirked at that.

“I’ve been told that before,” he pointed out. “And I gained more than I lost when I took on the Arishok in Kirkwall.”

Solas slowly shook his head.

“This is different,” he insisted. “Even with an army under your command, you would be killed before you even reach the temple steps.” He shook his head again. “No, you’ll need to cut out the heart of this cult at its source.”

Krem redirected his attention back to the ritual and saw the figures lower their hoods.

Viscount Dumar.

Archon Radonis.

And Florianne de Chalons.

Krem’s teeth gritted with sudden, animalistic anger. The urge to reveal himself and force his sword through the memory of the grand duchess was almost too tempting to ignore.

“She’ll pay for what she did,” Krem swore to Solas. “I’ll make her pay with blood.”

“Then you have a long road ahead of you,” Solas told him. “To cut a swath through the cult— to restore my temple and dispel the corruption— it won’t be easy, Cremisius.”

Krem could sense his resolve become a force of nature inside of him. He knew that this was what he had to do.

“It’s what the Inquisitor would have wanted,” Krem said. “I’ll see it done.”


	22. Of Back into the Fray

_One week later…_

Krem pulled the dragon leather hood of his cloak over his head to protect it from the impending rain and to hide his face from curious onlookers. The streets of Val Royeaux— overcrowded with refugees, tourists, and locals alike— provided ample opportunities to disappear like a droplet in the open sea. But the slight tingling on the back of Krem’s neck told him that he had been followed.

Ducking around a corner, he tried to map out the safest route to the seedy bar where he had been staying just outside of town. But navigation was never his strong suit, and he had kept to the same two roads since he had arrived in the city.

Much to his chagrin, and after only a few minutes of walking, Krem accidentally found himself at a dead end. And his tracker soon afterwards appeared at the mouth of the alley.

Krem snatched the dagger from his belt, ready to fight whatever dimwitted mugger had decided to trail him. But a familiar face appeared out of the shadows as the figure approached him.

“You somehow look even more ridiculous with a blade in your hand than you do a mage’s staff.” It was Leliana’s deadpan tone that reached him. “How you’ve survived out here alone for seven whole days is anyone’s guess.”

Krem sighed and lowered his hood.

As he did so, he felt the first droplets of rain on his shaved head.

“Happy to see you, too,” Krem sarcastically replied. “You pretended that I had alluded Cullen’s Inquisition for so long… It must have been very entertaining for you.”

Leliana betrayed a small smirk.

“Entertainment isn’t what it used to be,” she said. “You’re lucky that Florianne’s soldiers don’t have a fraction of a percentage of my skills.”

Krem blinked both eyes, but only one of them stared back at Leliana. The other was a prosthetic made of black, polished glass.

“I have plenty of luck to spare,” he admitted. “So who was it that tipped you off?”

Leliana crossed her arms over her burgundy fighting leathers.

“One of the six prostitutes that you’ve been indulging in while the rest of us have been staunching the bleeding of the Inquisition,” she responded. Then she feigned ignorance as she tapped at her chin. “What was his name again?”

“I didn’t ask their names,” Krem muttered. “And I paid them well to keep their mouths shut.”

“Not well enough to keep information from me,” Leliana said with a hard chill in her voice. “Now take me to your living quarters, Cremisius. We have a mountain of unfinished business to discuss.”

Krem scowled back at her.

“I’m not interested in the Inquisition’s business,” he flatly replied. “I’m doing my own thing.”

“You mean stamping out the cult that stymied your boon from Solas?” she stated. “I’m well aware. And I’m hoping that we can arrive at some sort of compromise.”

Krem’s frown deepened as a clap of thunder sounded in the distance.

“What’s in it for me?” he asked.

A glint of metal shone in Leliana’s hand immediately after he said it.

“You get to keep your other eye,” she crooned.

Krem felt himself slump in place.

“You drive a hard bargain,” he bitingly muttered as he gestured his hands in compliance. “And I’m too tired to turn this into a fight.”

Leliana cocked her head at him.

“Good choice,” she said. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

* * *

The sun had set and the rain was pouring down by the time Krem and Leliana made it to the bar where he had rented a spare room. The owner just gave them a passing glance of acknowledgment and up the rickety stairs to the second floor they went.

After closing the door behind them, Krem tossed a heavy key onto a nearby table and shrugged off his cloak. And Leliana wasted no time in scrutinizing Krem’s temporary living space.

“What a pigsty,” she scoffed as she touched a bolt of green fabric on Krem’s work desk.

“Don’t touch that,” Krem snapped at her as he took off his tunic and tossed it aside. “Just stand there and keep your hands to yourself.”

Leliana raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him, but still she moved to the center of the room. She also noticed three new tattoos that Krem had gotten since he had arrived in town. Stripped down to a tan binder, she could see a Qunari head on his left shoulder, a snake head on his right shoulder, and a wolf head between his shoulder blades.

“Where did you get the money for all of this?” she asked him.

“I killed a dragon with Bull before we went our separate ways,” he responded as he lit a cigarette by an open window. “I harvested the best parts of it and sold them to some Orlesian merchants. Not that it’s any of your business.”

Leliana pursed her lips.

“No one would suspect that you were the heroic knight-captain who was dancing with the Inquisitor just last week,” she noted.

Krem exhaled a cloud of green elfroot smoke from the corner of his mouth.

“That’s the point,” he dryly said. “Now, if there’s a reason for you following me here, can we get to it? I have things to do.”

“I’m sure that your hookups wouldn’t appreciate being called ‘things’, Cremisius,” she quipped. “And I can assure you that I make much more interesting company.”

Leliana retrieved a spiral-shaped locket of pure gold from her pocket and Krem suddenly straightened his posture.

“Where did you get that?” he demanded.

Krem dropped his cig into a mostly-empty glass of whiskey before crossing the room to get a better look. And Leliana let Krem snatch it out of her grip. But he was visibly disappointed when the locket fell open to reveal nothing inside of it.

“How did you get it open?” Krem quickly asked.

A shrewd glint played in Leliana’s eyes.

“We both have information that the other wants,” Leliana said. “I wouldn’t be here elsewise.”

Krem felt the blood rushing in his ears.

“This doesn’t change anything,” he said with finality. “You showed your hand too early, Spymaster. You blew it.”

Krem tossed the empty locket back to her and turned on his heel.

Leliana took a moment to readjust the scales of concession in her mind.

“We have the same goals, Krem,” she gently offered. “I miss Vera, too.”

A sudden anger made Krem face Leliana.

“ _Shut up,_ ” Krem growled as he pointed a reproaching finger at her. “Don’t you try to pull that shit on me.”

“I’m only suggesting that we work together to honor her wishes,” she said. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Krem took a thoughtful pause.

“Does Josephine know what happened?” he asked.

Leliana hesitated.

“Yes,” she simply said.

“Where is she?” Krem persisted. “Tell me that, and I promise I’ll go with you.”

Leliana narrowed her hard, calculating eyes at him.

Krem had known that it was a risky move, but Josephine was one of the few people who truly mattered to him now.

“Rivain,” Leliana finally said. “I’ve been in contact with her. And even on the threat of death, I won’t tell you one more word about it.”

Krem considered that and glanced around the room. He couldn’t live like this forever, and deep down, he knew that he wasn’t ready to call it quits just yet.

“A deal’s a deal,” he relented. “Give me half an hour to pack and I’ll meet you outside.”

Leliana smiled as if she had won a bet.

“Make it ten minutes,” she told him as she walked towards the door. “Inquisitor Rutherford doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”


	23. Of First Light and Second Chances

The alcohol buzzing in Krem’s system was at least making the upcoming reunion with Cullen less of a daunting task. He’d downed a glass of liquid courage in the minutes that Leliana had given him to gather his things and had since left the dingy bar to rejoin with the others. 

“You look like a vagrant,” Leliana scoffed at him as they walked down the road. 

“I _am_ a vagrant,” Krem reminded her. “And if you’d given me the half-hour that I asked for, I might have had time to splash some cold water on my face.”

“So many excuses,” Leliana remarked. “It’s one of the many reasons Josie left you.”

It was meant to be a jab, and sure enough, it landed. 

“Ouch,” Krem dully responded. 

The rain shower had stopped but Krem kept the hood of his cloak up to hide his face as they walked through Val Royeaux’s main square. He had avoided travelling through this part of the city for a great variety of reasons, and he clenched his jaw as they passed by one of them. 

A vigil had been built on the north side of the courtyard in remembrance of Inquisitor Vera and the countless lives that were lost in the attack on Skyhold. It was a large wooden table draped in a pure white cloth and set with a dozen blood-red votive candles which had drawn a small crowd of mourners. Vibrant flower blooms along with their tear-shaped petals— enough to fill a small garden— covered the ground around it. And a chantry mother was meticulously relighting the tiny candles that had been drenched after the rainstorm, her face tranquil but reverent. 

“Cremisius,” Leliana impatiently called out to him. 

Krem had frozen to the spot, unable to look away from the funeral scene. 

“Give me a second,” he heard himself say. Then his legs carried him away to pay his respects.

Leliana didn’t try to stop him. 

Once he was at the table, Krem could spot some of the more curious offerings on display. Ripened fruits had been cut and their colorful juices dripped down the sides of the white cloth. Long pages of parchment with heartfelt letters written on them were scattered among the flowers. And many different kinds of arrows— much more than Krem could count— had been placed hither and thither on the table and across the cobblestones under his feet. 

Krem’s throat began to tighten at the sight of it all. He didn’t have any fruits or flowers or notes to give so he hastily reached into the pocket of his cloak and pulled out his old eyepatch. Then he placed it with the rest of the offerings and tossed out an Andrastian prayer. 

Eventually, he rejoined with Leliana in the center of the square. 

“I’m ready,” he told her, his voice stronger than he expected it to sound. 

Leliana considered him for a moment. Then she nodded and led him to the main chantry that stood on the border of the city. 

The Orlesian chantry was a sight to behold. Towering taller than plenty of the holds that the Inquisition had reclaimed from bandits and abominations, it stood as a testament to how strong the Andrastian faith remained despite the tragic death of Divine Justinia V. 

Leliana stepped inside the cavernous Chantry as if she were simply returning home. But Krem hesitated on the threshold with doubt lingering in his mind. 

After he had thrown in with Solas, would he still be permitted to grace the Chantry’s sacred halls?

“Hurry up,” Leliana snapped at him. “Inquisitor Cullen is expecting you.”

After a short pause, Krem mustered himself and took that daring step forward. 

Nothing. 

‘ _Well, at least I didn’t combust into holy fire_ ,’ he glumly thought. ‘ _That would have been embarrassing_.’

Krem and Leliana found Cullen standing at a stone holy water font outside of the prayer hall alongside a Chantry Mother in full garb. 

Cullen’s hands were drenched in blood. 

“Cleanse yourself, Cullen,” Krem heard the Chantry Mother advise him as she pulled him closer to the stoup. “The Maker will make you clean once again.”

“I would not dare defile this hallowed place, Revered Mother,” Cullen deflected. “I can go somewhere that isn’t—“

“Squandering The Maker’s gifts is unbecoming of you,” she gently chided him. “The blessed water is here to serve your purpose as much as any other that passes through these halls.”

Cullen’s mouth hardened into a grim line over his stubbled chin, and he finally relented, sinking his sullied hands into the pool.

“Did another fight find you, Inquisitor?” Leliana asked Cullen on approach. 

Krem felt his own stomach protest the title as it was spoken with a rough tug. 

“Nothing so commonplace,” Cullen said with a small smile. “I helped welcome a new life into the world.”

The answer took Krem by surprise. 

“You were doubling as a midwife?” he asked. 

Cullen couldn’t help but chuckle; low and tired. 

“Doubled, tripled, octupled,” he sighed. “There aren’t nearly enough hands to go around so I’ve done my best to bring mine across the city to help out as many refugees as I can.”

Krem bit his tongue. Judging from the bruises sunken deep around Cullen’s eyes, Krem knew that he wasn’t exaggerating. 

“Thank you for your kindness, Mother Gloria,” Cullen announced, shaking Krem from his thoughts. “I’ll be back later today to help prepare for evening prayer.”

Mother Gloria gently clutched at her own chest. 

“Continue to walk in the Maker’s blessed light, my child,” she said, “and it will have been enough in His eyes.”

Cullen thanked her again and gestured for Leliana and Krem to follow him to a more secluded part of the Chantry. 

“It’s good to see you again, Krem,” Cullen said as he leaned against a marble pillar. “I was starting to wonder if you had skipped town.”

Krem shifted uncomfortably.

“Our paths would have crossed again sooner or later,” Krem shrugged. “And your Spymaster can be very persuasive.”

Cullen noticed Krem’s disquiet and slowly straightened his posture as if his body were working against him. Exhaustion weighed down Cullen’s shoulders with the burden of his newfound responsibilities. 

“I’m sorry, Krem,” he said, dragging a hand down his face. “I wish that we had time to grab a drink and talk this over like friends. But I have a favor to ask of you.”

Krem held back his own vexation. 

“What favor?” he asked. 

Cullen visibly perked up at Krem’s willingness to hear him out— that old brightness returning to his eyes in a flash— and Krem couldn’t help but be swayed by it. And so he lowered the hood of his cloak, feeling less alone than he had all week. 

“We lost a hell of a lot the day Skyhold fell,” Cullen professed. Then, realizing the blasphemous nature of that certain turn of phrase, he glanced around in a paranoid way. “More than the hold. More than its leader, even,” he continued. “We lost the anchor, Krem.”

Realization struck Krem like a bolt out of the blue. No anchor meant that they no longer had anything to close the rifts. 

“The demons have already grown in numbers since then,” Leliana attested. “And you’re the only one with the same powers that she had.”

Krem was blindsided into taking a step back. 

“You’ve got it all wrong,” he said, shaking his head. “Solas couldn’t close the rifts and neither can I. It doesn’t work like that.”

“But you opened portals to the Fade,” Leliana protested. “I’ve read your file. Vera took extremely detailed notes— with annotations for the annotations.”

Krem’s fingers closed into fists at his sides. 

“That’s different,” he argued. “Just because I can open portals—“

“Have you tried to seal the rifts in the sky?” Cullen asked, and the unfiltered desperation in his voice chased away Krem’s protestations. 

“No,” Krem admitted. “We had her. There wasn’t any reason to try.”

“Well, the opportunity has readily presented itself,” Leliana said, propping one hand on her hip. “Cremisius, if there is any chance—“

“Do you even realize what you’re asking of me?” Krem asked, a hollow laugh shaking the question. “You two seriously want me to be your Inquisition’s Rift-Closer?”

Leliana turned her nose at him. 

“You’re right,” she sneered. “We expected far too much from you.”

Then she turned sharply on her heel and disappeared down the hall, and Cullen’s brow furrowed in the long silence that followed. 

“I know I’m not Vera,” Cullen sighed. “I’ll never be Vera. I’ll stand in her shadow until my dying days. But I can’t just stand by and do nothing.”

Krem felt a muscle tighten in his jaw. 

“What if I can’t do it?” he asked. “What if it turns out the only person who can seal the rifts died with no one to protect her?”

As Cullen considered that, the worried lines on his face deepened. 

“Then some very dark days are ahead of us,” he answered.


	24. Of Hot Nights and Cold Comforts

Three days. That’s how long Cullen had given Krem before he would be deployed on a mission to deal with a small rift just outside the city limits of Val Royeaux.

It was a flexible deadline— within reason— and it depended heavily on how Krem’s portal practice progressed in the meantime. And perhaps more importantly, he had been paid upfront with a generous, tidy sum of gold. A welcome surprise.

Then Leliana had sealed the deal with an offer that she knew Krem couldn’t possibly pass up.

“Close that rift for us,” she had told him, “and I’ll personally see that you come by an invitation to the Winter Palace. Play your cards right, and Florianne won’t see you coming for her.”

It was agreed that Krem would lodge in Val Royeaux’s main Chantry, tucked away in a cozy attic room that had been conveniently cleaned up ahead of time. Indeed, it was starting to look like bets had definitely been placed on whether or not he would join Cullen’s Inquisition, after all.

After unpacking his things and removing his cloak, Krem sat cross-legged on a bedroll that had been provided for him with his staff balanced across his knees.

“Solas?” he called out. “Can you hear me?”

No response.

Whether it was of Solas’ own volition or because of the spiritual sanctuary that the Chantry provided, Krem wasn’t certain. And he let out a quiet, heavy sigh.

“Looks like I’m my own teacher for now,” he said.

With both hands tightly gripping Solas’ staff, Krem closed his eyes and searched for the magic energy inside of him. The focus at the end of the staff responded with a gentle purple glow, and the space in front of him tore open at the seams.

When Krem opened his eyes, he was looking through a portal the size of a small window— straight into The Fade. It revealed a flat, rocky expanse covered with tall, rocky monoliths that stretched up into an eerie green sky. It was the same part of The Fade where he and Bull had encountered that giant, monstrous demon.

That old feeling of being horribly unbalanced made Krem grip tighter at his staff. Even sitting on the floor, he felt like he was perched on an impossibly tall and precarious precipice. But he centered himself and kept the magic going for as long as he was able.

Then, after thirty seconds, he gasped— letting in a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding— and the portal snapped shut with a crackle of energy. Krem steadied himself with one hand on the floor, his head spinning with vertigo. A cold sweat had gathered on his forehead. And it took him several minutes to fully recover from the intense physical fatigue that followed.

Krem quietly swore under his breath. His magical stamina was still miles from where it needed to be. And anecdotal evidence suggested that he could now summon a significant amount of electricity with the same amount of magic required to open small gateways to the Fade for less than a minute.

And with no mentor to help him, the odds were definitely stacked against him.

“Three days…” he told himself. And his resolve transmuted to steel. “No fucking sweat.”

* * *

Late that night, when the stormy skies had cleared and everyone except the most unscrupulous folks in the city had since bedded down, Krem snuck out of the Chantry with his hood up and the pocket of his cloak weighted down with gold.

Ghosting around the perimeter of the Chantry, he found the person that he was looking for exactly where he had told them to wait. Standing at the base of a large Andrastian statue was a dark-haired human with large spectacles on the end of his nose. His blue eyes cut through the darkness to watch Krem’s approach, and as Krem lowered his hood, a hard stone of nerves bobbed in the small man’s throat.

“I’ll have you know that this is not the standard of my business, sir,” he announced, and Krem could tell that he had rehearsed the line beforehand. “I am not a common streetwalker.”

Krem raised an eyebrow at him.

“Do you charge extra for exhibitionism?” he smoothly asked and fished three gold coins from the lining of his cloak.

Seeing the extra coins took most of the aggression out of the man’s stance.

“I’m… not against anything if the price is right,” he amended. “Five sovereigns, no less.”

Krem cocked his head in an amused way and brought out two more coins between his fingers.

“Five sovereigns,” he echoed as he advanced. And as he pushed the money into the man’s open hand, Krem forced him bodily against the statue’s stone pedestal.

Bull had warned him long ago to not hire any sex worker that he couldn’t overpower. Be it robbery or something more sinister, it wasn’t worth biting off more than one could chew.

As such, the bare-chested man whose time he had bought was half his size and blatantly unarmed. There was absolutely nothing hidden under the blue opaque silks that barely passed as clothing in a classy city like Val Royeaux.

Just another night of Krem forgetting his troubles.

“You can touch my shoulders, my back, my face, and nothing else,” Krem enunciated next to the man’s ear. “And I’ll tell you when I’m done with you. Understand?”

The man braced himself on the stonework behind him with eyes half-lidded and lips seductively parted.

“You break it, you buy it,” the man countered. “No marks, no bruises.”

Krem wrapped an arm around the man’s torso, traced the muscles in his neck with his lips, and roughly rolled his hips against the immodest bulge waiting for him.

“No marks,” Krem repeated in a low groan. And the cologne that he had requested that the man wear— Dorian’s signature floral perfume— filled his senses to urge him on. “No bruises.”

The man’s compliant arms wrapped around to Krem’s back and gripped at his cloak to help keep his balance. And Krem continued to grind against the man’s waist as his mouth skimmed across a pale, bare throat.

Then, ready to get what he paid for, Krem closed his eyes and decorated his mind with sensual memories of Dorian.

“I’m here for you, Sweet Pea,” he said in a honeyed voice, and it pulled a slow moan out of his temporary partner.

Krem’s hungry hand began to glide behind the body against him and the man rocked against him as Krem’s fingers explored their way into that warm, inviting spot. With his other hand, Krem hitched a slender leg around him and quickened his pace at both ends.

Muffled moans filled the air around them as the man buried his unexpectedly loud mouth into Krem’s bulky shoulder. Neither of them wanted to alert the city guards.

“I’d take any throne for you,” Krem fantasized aloud, “then I’d fuck you long and hard on it.”

Another encouraging, stifled moan went against his shoulder. And Krem began to thrust faster, with more strength behind it.

“My mouth around your perfect cock as you wore a king’s crown,” he went on. “Praising every inch of you— your toned legs, your marble chest, your silver fucking tongue.”

The man threw back his head in mounting pleasure— an excited sound was freed from him like a songbird from a cage— and Krem planted rough kisses on the man’s sharp clavicle.

“You damned sweet thing,” Krem moaned as he swirled a finger inside that hot, puckered place. The cock poking into Krem’s hip was pulsing smartly with only a leather coat separating them. And Krem teased the man with the empty threat of teeth on his neck. “Apricots wish they had your taste in them.”

Slender fingers bunched the back of Krem’s cloak with blind ferocity.

“M— More…!” the man begged. “Maker Above, I want more—!”

But Krem caught the man’s loose mouth in a hard kiss, silencing his pleas before they could break Krem’s indulgent self-deception.

“Keep your whore mouth on me,” Krem ordered him with an irritated snarl. “And bite me hard when you cum.”

“A— Aye, sir,” the man mewled as Krem’s finger plunged even deeper into him.

Then Krem threw himself back into a vision of the round curve of Dorian’s ass devouring two more of his fingers.

The man bucked on Krem’s hand at a fervent pace and the sudden sound of leather ripping into shreds cut through the still of the night. The man clamored to find a hold that wasn’t in long, ruined tatters. And with a wailing, excited sound, he hooked his wobbly arms around Krem and dug his teeth into Krem’s shoulder.

The thick leather of Krem’s cloak softened the bite, but the imagined picture of Dorian holding on to him with his teeth as a sticky warmth spilled across his chest sent Krem over the edge.

A howling, climaxing moan was drawn out of the tiny man— his mouth pushed hard against Krem’s shoulder— as Krem braced himself against the statue of the Maker’s blessed bride to ride his way to the height of his arousal.

And Krem’s mind suddenly raced to Bull— naked and splayed for the taking— as a dizzying, blissful pressure built up in his groin.

With starbursts overtaking his vision, Krem orgasmed like a frenzied force of nature. His entire body shook with effort as he grunted and muscled against the half-naked man.

And after several seconds of breathing hard, Krem detached himself from the embrace with an impartial shove and staggered out into the open. He unclasped his ruined cloak, revealing the green, homemade mage’s robes that he wore underneath it. Then he silently discarded the leather cloak onto the road with his back facing the hired man.

“Get out of here,” Krem gasped, slowly pushing a hand across his sweat-slicked head, “and don’t let me catch you around here again.”

The man didn’t need to be told twice. He snatched the coins he had earned from off of the Andrastian statue with a trembling hand and stumbled out of the alleyway.

But the man didn’t get far.

Just as he rounded the first corner into the main square, he ran past Bull who was leaning against the side of a building. Startled by the unexpected and hugely intimidating Qunari, the man tripped over his own feet with a frightened squeak and fell gracelessly onto the street.

“Maker! Andraste! Forgive me!” the poor man beseeched, throwing his hands up protectively in front of his face.

But Bull didn’t make a move to act on the man’s mindless blubbering.

“Andraste says not to fuck clients on her effigies,” Bull grumbled at the man, his arms tightly crossed over his barrel chest.

The terrified man scrambled backwards on his hands, nodding furiously as he went. Then he blurted out something in rapid Orlesian and dashed away, out of sight.

Bull let out a tired, heavy sigh and gave a thoughtful look down at Krem’s eyepatch resting in the palm of his hand. Then, after siding with his better judgment, Bull tucked it away in the pocket of his parachute pants, pushed off of the wall, and disappeared into the night.


	25. Of Giving Up the Ghost

Krem entered the empty chapel searching for something but he wasn’t sure of exactly what. His spirit was tugged forward like a fish on a line until he stood between the first row of pews. The cold, unseeing eyes of Andraste considered him from above— her large statues contemplative and silent. Krem closed his eyes and reached out with his spirit. And when he opened them again, Inquisitor Vera was standing in front of him.

Leaning against the lectern before him— high up on the pulpit— the Inquisitor smiled as if she had been waiting there for him all along. Immune and unmoved by the religiosity of the Chantry, she skipped down the carpeted steps and crossed her arms with a carefree flounce.

“It was just a kiss, Krem,” she teased him like a sibling would as her eyes twinkled with providential insight. “And yes, we both know that Bull is a good kisser, but you sure let it get to you, huh?”

Krem felt a bright surge of emotion rise in him, but the deluge seemed to be held back by some sort of unseen force. It was as if he had found himself in a liminal space—stuck between the real and unreal.

“Inquisitor…” he breathed. “I’m… so sorry that I couldn’t save you when I had the chance.“

The Inquisitor walked forward and smiled at him like a ray of sunshine.

“I don’t regret a single thing, Krem,” she gently told him. “And neither should you.”

Krem felt his breath leave him in a rush and he slowly shook his head.

“The world still needs you,” he said. “Everything is in ruins without you.”

At that, as if remembering the situation at hand, the Inquisitor's expression went serious.

“You can’t see it,” she stated. “I couldn’t see it, either. But the corruption is taking hold of you.”

Krem was visibly taken aback.

“Inquisitor, that isn’t—“

“It’s hurting the people around you to watch you lose yourself like this,” she went on. “Don’t push them away like I did.”

Krem felt tears prickling at his eye. He couldn’t imagine anyone else feeling what he felt in this moment. Least of all over him.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he said, his voice trembling. “I wanted to fight at your side until we grew old together.”

The Inquisitor gave him an amused smile.

“You would have grown old a lot faster than me,” she noted.

Krem felt his heart ache at the thought.

“I would have been fine with that,” he said.

The Inquisitor closed the rest of the distance between them and ghosted a small hand over his. But there was no warmth to her touch. It was as if she wasn’t there at all.

“Give me one last dance?” she asked, her voice light and hopeful. “Just the two of us?”

Krem felt his chest tighten with both great sadness and joy. He hovered one hand at her waist and the other over her open hand. And they kicked off together in perfect harmony. Even without music, their movements matched each other with every twirl down the aisle. But only Krem’s quick footfalls reverberated against the chapel walls as they danced.

A bright rainbow of light guided them as they spun— shining through the stained glass windows that reached up to the domed ceiling. And once the two of them reached the end of the aisle, they ended their waltz all at once and held each other’s gaze as if both were afraid of losing the other again. But something told Krem, deep down, that this reunion was never meant to last.

“I believe in you, Krem,” the Inquisitor said, heartfelt. “I’ve always believed in you. But whatever you choose to do going forward, don’t lose sight of your friends.”

And when the Inquisitor sadly reached up to touch his face, her visage becoming more and more translucent, Krem knew that their time together was almost gone.

“Vera…?” he breathed. “Is this… our last goodbye?”

The Inquisitor started to respond, but her voice couldn’t reach him. And Krem watched her slowly fade and disappear from this plane of unreality.

Then he was completely alone.

But not for long.

Those terrible, metallic footfalls creaked on the hardwood floor behind him, and Krem’s blood went loud in his ears. He spun around with fright and Commander Jarok— a sickening grin spread across his face— was suddenly looming over him in full bronze armor.

A gigantic hand snapped forward with impossible speed and closed around Krem’s throat, lifting him clear off the ground. Krem sputtered as the force on his windpipe threatened to crush the life from him, his legs dangling uselessly below him.

With a triumphant shadow on his face, Jarok pulled back his other fist.

“ _No one to save you this time_ , bas.”

Then, with a resentful shout, the Arishok punched a hole straight through Krem’s chest.

* * *

Krem shot upright on his bedroll with a terrified scream. He had been crying in his sleep— his face damp with tears and sweat.

Reaching up his tunic, he didn’t find any physical damage from the nightmarish punch— only the rough, raised scar left from Jarok’s bloodthirsty attack on him from so long ago.

Krem took in a shallow, shaky breath.

‘ _The Inquisitor was right_ ,’ he thought past the panic clouding his mind. ‘ _This spiritual corruption is slowly eating me alive_.’

But what could he do about it? Purify Solas’ temple? It seemed like such a far-off goal. Krem wasn’t sure if he could master his magic and fight his way through the cult before the corruption finally ran its course. What would happen once the blood magic finally overpowered him?

Krem shivered at the thought. And after getting bathed and dressed, he went down to the lower floor of the Chantry to find some fresh air.


	26. Of Enough to Cobble Dogs

Mid-morning greeted Krem with a promise of cooler weather. The open entrance hall of the chantry was bustling with worshipers— locals in high-fashion and refugees in their plainclothes. And in his green mage’s robes with a staff in his hand, Krem blended in fairly well with the crowd. 

With his stomach grumbling, Krem wandered to the dining district to find some food. And to his surprise, he found a couple familiar faces. 

Hawke and Fenris were sitting together at a small table in the open air eatery wearing handsome jackets and dark slacks for a brunch date. Krem smiled at the sight of it and was about to leave them to it when Fenris caught his gaze. Hawke saw the acknowledgement in his partner’s eyes and turned to see Krem. Then Hawke broke into a huge smile and waved him down from across the courtyard. 

And with his spirits lifted, Krem went to join them. 

“I knew I’d catch up with you two eventually,” Krem told them as he took a seat and put his staff aside. “I just didn’t think it’d be out of the blue like this.”

“If you passed us on the street, I might not have even recognized you,” Fenris noted. “But that facial scar is hard to miss.”

“It adds to your roguish charm,” Hawke joked as he playfully elbowed Krem in the ribs. “Go ahead and order whatever you want off the menu. I’ll pick up the bill.”

Krem felt awfully humbled at the offer. He opened his mouth to protest, but a blonde, elven waitress arrived to take their orders. 

“A bottle of plum brandy for the table and cheese omelettes for myself and my husband,” Hawke declared. “What’ll it be for you, Krem?”

“A cheese omelette sounds great,” he capitulated. “Thanks, Hawke.”

Then the three of them chatted over a savory breakfast and warm glasses of brandy with their troubles all but forgotten. 

“Cullen thinks I can do something about the Fade rifts with Solas’ magic,” Krem told them past a mouthful of rich feta cheese. “He said I’d be dispatched with a team to deal with it a couple days from now. But I’m not even sure I’ll be able to do anything to help. Has he approached you two about it?”

“Garrett and I will be travelling back to Kirkwall tomorrow morning,” Fenris said. “We won’t be able to join you on your mission.”

“But we could help you prepare for it,” Hawke suggested. “Did you need any advice, or…?”

Krem nervously rubbed at his own neck. 

“What I need is a solid decade of magic training,” he admitted. “But it looks like I’m going to have to settle for a self-taught crash course.”

Hawke’s expression suddenly went stern; his brow uncharacteristically furrowed. 

“Before that, you need to get your head in a better place,” Hawke said, and his dark mood quickly dissipated. Then he went into his coin purse and piled a generous sum of money onto the table. “Come on,” he told Krem with an encouraging wink. “I’ll give you a few pointers while we’re in town.”

The three of them left the restaurant, remarking on their food and the waitress as they went, until Hawke stopped to shrug off his cloak. 

“Can’t even dress for the weather, let alone fight demons from the Fade,” Hawke muttered and draped the thing over Krem. “Keep it. You can start your new wardrobe with it.”

Krem actually felt himself blush. 

“Hawke… this…” He pulled the heavy, expensive leather cloak around himself as he said it. “This is really too much. I’m—“

“Double-time, Krem!” Hawke exclaimed, ignoring his protests with a smile. “We only have one day to turn you into an expert mage!”

Then the Champion broke into a jovial sprint towards the docks. 

Soon afterwards, Fenris came to a solemn halt next to Krem. 

“Do you know the reason why your spouse is showering me with gifts again?” Krem quietly asked him. 

Fenris crossed his arms over his chest, rummaging for an appropriate response. 

“We all saw and heard what happened in the throne room, Cremisius,” he said, his voice gentler than usual. “What Florianne did… What she said when she interrupted the proceedings.” Fenris took a deep breath before continuing. “Garrett was going to go up there and say something in your defense if your— if the Iron Bull hadn’t done so.”

Krem was suddenly overtaken with half a dozen warring emotions. He wasn’t at all sure of how to respond to that. 

“Or perhaps Garrett just enjoys doting on attractive Tevinter men,” Fenris quipped to lighten the mood. And then he walked ahead. 

At that, Krem’s worries were instantly chased away as his thoughts went straight to Bull. And he let out a weak laugh. 

“Yeah,” he said. “I know the type.”

The two of them caught up with Hawke at the narrow sea wall just as he hopped onto it like a balance beam with his staff in hand. Hawke took a couple steps to test the stability of it and then turned to them with an eager smile. 

“It’s been a while since we sparred,” Hawke told Krem with a spinning flourish of his staff. “Why don’t we try to knock each other off this wall?”

Krem made a sound that was half-chuckle, half-scoff. The thin stone wall reached four feet above the ground and six feet above the water. 

“I’m not trying to get arrested today,” Krem said only halfheartedly. 

“The city guard wouldn’t arrest the Champion of Kirkwall over something so petty,” Fenris said. “And if they did, I’d break both of you out of jail in the dead of night.”

Krem couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not. He wouldn’t put it past Fenris. 

“Just don’t cry when I beat you,” Krem taunted Hawke with a crooked smile and climbed onto the sea wall with his staff at the ready. 

Krem wobbled forward until he was facing Hawke on the wall, and Hawke startled him with a feint. Krem swore and took an unsteady step back. 

“Dammit, Hawke,” he laughed and attempted a swipe with his own staff. 

Hawke easily knocked it aside and gave Krem time to find his footing. 

“What happened to your sea legs?” Hawke teased him and went for a thrust. 

Krem solidly parried it and collected himself. 

“I never found them,” he professed and went for a lightning-fast jab. 

Hawke suddenly tightened his pose, blocking the job, and countered with a powerful, three-step advance. 

Krem blocked Hawke’s swings with no problems but lost a lot of ground on the retaining wall. Then Krem lowered his stance and went for a jab to Hawke’s stomach. The focus of his staff barely landed and Hawke hopped backward to put distance between them. 

“That’s it!” Hawke excitedly said and reset his footing. 

But an unmistakable feeling of being watched from afar made Krem take pause. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and he spun to look down a nearby alleyway. A small group of curious onlookers had stopped to watch their sparring match. But Krem’s gaze automatically found a familiar, parachute-pants-wearing Qunari, standing at the back of the crowd with a look of lackadaisical amusement.

Krem’s eye went wide with disbelief, and within a split second, Hawke’s staff swooped behind Krem’s legs, knocking them out from under him. Krem let out a startled shout and tumbled into the water with a huge splash. And a chorus of applause for Hawke rang out as he resurfaced. Krem scrambled to get back onto land— to confront Bull about following him— but by then, Bull was long gone. 

“That was even quicker than I thought it would be,” Fenris said, pulling Krem out of the water.

“Laugh all you want,” Krem groaned, forcing Bull out of his mind. “I’m just warming up.”


	27. Of Taking Two to Tango

The sun had long since set on Val Royeaux, and Hawke, Fenris, and Krem had been spending the past four hours bar-hopping in the city center. After twenty craft beers had been shared between the three of them, Fenris was closer to buzzed than tipsy, Krem was closer to tipsy than buzzed, and Hawke was closer to drunk than tipsy.

Hawke was propped up between the two Tevinter men as they stumbled up the main street of the city while singing a pitchy version of a well-known Orlesian shanty. Their dissonant, carefree harmony must have carried quite a ways, but not one of them was in a state of mind to give it much thought. 

“I’m starting to doubt that Hawke is even human,” Krem said, shifting the man’s weight on his shoulders. “How is it even possible to fit that much beer into one person’s stomach?”

“You told him to chug that last mug of ale,” Fenris flatly noted. 

“I didn’t think he’d actually do it,” Krem admitted. 

Meanwhile, Hawke— singing loudly— finished off his solo verse with a jubilant cheer. Then he petered off into breathless laughter, nearly falling over his own two feet. 

“ _That_ should be a song,” Fenris said. 

“What should?” Krem asked as they walked. 

“The Champion drank every beer he could see~” Fenris recited with an impressive sense of tone. 

Krem spat out a laugh. 

“And he had a wineskin where his stomach should be~” he exaggeratedly finished. 

Then three of them burst into a rowdy kind laughter that one cherishes long after the fact. 

Krem finally caught his breath once he realized that he didn’t recognize the part of the city where they had found themselves. Passersby were becoming noticeably more sparse with every step that they took. 

“Hey,” Krem called out to the others as he took in his surroundings. “Where are we headed now?”

A wry smile made its way above Fenris’ chin. 

“As if you don’t already know,” he scoffed. 

Krem just blinked— utterly confused by the statement and at a complete loss of how to respond. 

The path they were on became narrower and more twisty the further it led out of the main district. And the cobblestones under their feet had not seen any kind of upkeep in some time. 

Then, as they turned a corner, the firelight inside the nearby street lanterns went from yellow to red, bathing the dark street in an ominous glow. And before he knew it, Krem was being ushered through the front entrance of a hidden, nondescript cabaret on the edge of town. 

The sound of a large, excited crowd punctuated by a band of deep cellos and brassy dwarven instruments rose up to meet Krem as they entered the gigantic barroom. 

It was a fairly high class affair with rich purple carpeting and signed portraits of esteemed guests lining the walls. An open stage rose above the hundred various couches and chairs that filled the space in front of him. And to top it all off, an opulent, Orlesian-style chandelier was suspended above the packed crowd. And it was only when Krem slipped out from under Hawke’s arm and stepped further inside the large, bustling hall that he noticed several familiar faces. 

“Seeker?” he called out as he approached Cassandra. She was lounging in a plush chair with an empty champagne flute between her fingers. “You’re here, too?”

Cassandra looked a tad flustered at first, but waved and smiled back at Krem, nonetheless. A scantily-clad waitress switched out her drink for a full glass without Cassandra even noticing. 

“Oh, don’t act so surprised!” Cassandra told Krem— her face a brilliant shade of red as she said it. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world!”

Krem began to ask her what was happening tonight to draw such a huge crowd, but he noticed that Fenris and Hawke had gone ahead without him so he went to catch up with them. 

Krem’s bewilderment only persisted as he recognized even more faces. 

“Sera,” he stated. “Why am I not surprised to find you here.”

Sera giggle-snorted with her arm around a very drunk waitress that Krem recognized from the cafe that he had eaten at several hours ago. 

“I don’t have to be turned on by it to have a good time!” Sera said, defensively. “Seriously! You’re one to judge!” 

Then the waitress began kissing Sera’s neck and her attention was promptly stolen. So Krem kept walking, still entirely unsure what to make of all this. 

Vivienne, Blackwall, and Varric were all in attendance as well. And Krem— having not talked to them since Skyhold was destroyed— wanted to quickly check in with them, but the audience was starting to find their seats. 

Apparently, the show was about to start.

Fenris eventually led them down in front of the stage— Krem had been so distracted that he hadn’t even noticed— and after offhandedly pushing Krem down onto a large, empty sofa, Fenris began to lead Hawke away to where Varric was sitting. 

“Wait!” Krem called out to them. “The sofa’s big enough for all of us.”

But then Hawke started to chuckle— uncomfortably. 

“I may be drunk,” he slurred, “but I don’t think I’ll ever be _that_ drunk.”

Then Fenris and Hawke departed, and Krem was left alone in the front row of the low-lit club. 

‘ _Well, that was weird_ ,’ he decided. 

Krem almost got up to join the others at Varric’s table instead, but then the band went quiet and the lights went dark before he could. 

There was an inebriated, impatient shout from Cassandra and a soft chuckle from Varric. Then there was an encouraging shout from Sera. The band suddenly played a loud, collective note, and the peanut gallery was hushed. 

After a long moment of silence, the band instruments began a jazzy, staccato song. 

The stage curtains slowly rose to start the show. 

And nothing could have prepared Krem for what happened next. 

Stepping onto the stage in full confidence— wearing a flowing pink dress, crystalline stiletto heels, and Inquisitor Vera’s silver tiara on his head— was The Iron Bull. 

Krem’s jaw dropped, and the crowd went wild. 

Shoulders back, chin up, and hips swaying, Bull strutted to the pole in the middle of the stage and did a smooth spin around it. 

Cassandra whistled. Sera whooped and hollered. 

With one hand still on the dancers’ pole, Bull struck an impressive pose and snapped his gaze to Krem.

Krem wanted to keep his cool, but his brain refused to cooperate. 

Even as Bull began sashaying towards him, Krem couldn’t play it off— couldn’t look away. 

Then Bull was right on top of him. 

Two giant hands slowly skimmed up Krem’s legs, and Krem’s thighs parted on their own. 

Bull smirked, his lips heavily glossed and smelling strongly of citrus. 

Krem could have ended the scene on the spot. But every part of him wanted the show to go on. 

“ _Wow_ ,” he breathed. 

Then Bull leaned forward and kissed him. 

And the room erupted in applause. 

It spurred them both on to a ravenous pace. 

Krem bunched up the front of Bull’s dress in both hands as Bull straddled him on the couch. Then their kiss deepened. And when Krem felt Bull’s tongue curl against his— beckoning him— Krem threw his arms around Bull and kissed him back. 

Then an angry shout rang out from several rows back. 

“Hey! It’s that Qunari and the Inquisitor’s knight-captain!”

The gig was up. 

A dozen of Florianne’s soldiers answered the call and stood from their seats. 

Bull’s hand was in Krem’s before their weapons were even drawn. 

“Knew we’d find you here!” Varric shouted and promptly retrieved Bianca, his crossbow, from under his chair. 

“Don’t let those soldiers escape!” Blackwall commanded. 

Everyone was on their feet at a moment’s notice. 

And Bull was dragging Krem backstage. 

The fight was so sudden and so disorderly that no one saw the two of them exit stage left. 

“This was a set-up?” Krem blurted out as they dashed down a narrow hallway. 

“It was a lap dance,” Bull countered with a playful lilt in his voice. “But yes, it was also that.”

Krem could hardly believe it. He tightened his hold on Bull’s hand and kept running. 

“What did Dorian think of all this?” he asked. 

Bull laughed over his shoulder. 

“It was all his idea,” he said. 

Krem felt his heart grow full. 

“ _Of course_ it was,” he scoffed. 

Bull kicked open a door that led into a deserted alleyway, and they both doubled over to catch their breath. 

“You’re… not leaving again, right?” Bull finally, tentatively asked him. 

Krem was smiling from ear to ear. 

“Are you kidding?” he replied as they made a break for the edge of town. “What the hell would I do without you?”


	28. Of Returning the Favor

After making sure that they weren’t followed, Krem and Bull made it back to their forest camp outside of Val Royeaux. The night was growing cold, but Bull insisted that he needed to wash up before they bedded down. And Krem wasn’t motivated to argue with him.

The pond where Krem had bathed over a week ago was where he suggested that they go, and go there they did.

Within minutes, Krem was down to his underthings with his couture robe, his mage’s staff, and Hawke’s leather cloak carefully set to the side. But as he turned around, his eye caught something off about Bull. He swore under his breath and quickly waded into the water to join him.

The naked Qunari was halfway to the waterfall to shower himself when Krem grabbed his wrist and stopped his progress.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Krem exclaimed, dragging Bull around to face him.

An ugly gash reached across Bull’s left side, just over his hip. It was still stitched up and seemed only a day or two old.

“I got hit,” Bull shrugged. “It happens.”

But Krem didn’t let up.

“ _Who did this to you?_ ”

His voice was full of astonishment and anger and concern— all unhidden and unabated.

Bull’s shoulders lost their tension and his expression went soft.

“You almost sound impressed,” he replied.

Krem furrowed his brow.

“I’m the only one that’s allowed to beat you in a fight,” he proclaimed.

Bull smiled and gently reached out to touch Krem’s face. Then he sharply turned Krem’s chin this way and that to check for marks and bruises.

“If you were _allowed_ ,” Bull pointedly said, “then you would have done it by now.”

Krem innocuously shoved Bull’s hand away from him and made for the waterfall.

“You know what I mean,” he protested. “And stop avoiding my question.”

But Bull was obviously set on not talking about it. He wordlessly went under the waterfall and let the torrent crash over his head. Krem was about to press the issue further when a familiar voice called out to them from the pond’s bank.

“Sneaking away for a double feature?” Dorian teasingly asked them. “Did I miss anything particularly kinky?”

Krem knew he wasn’t getting anything else out of Bull so he moodily swam back to shore. But once he got within a stone’s throw of Dorian, he saw an expensive slip of decorated parchment held up between his fingers. Krem easily spotted Empress Celene’s crest embossed on the front of it, and it made his heart skip a beat.

“Is that an invitation to the Winter Palace?” he asked, climbing back onto dry land to get a good look. “How did you get that?”

“No breathless excitement at seeing me again?” Dorian asked him. “And here I thought we had something special.”

Krem rolled his eye at him.

“Both of you are being obnoxious,” he said, only half-seriously. “I wasn’t even gone for that long.”

“We can’t all be bastions of maturity and self-restraint, Cremisius,” Dorian told him with a fair share of snark.

Krem propped his hands on his hips.

“I can’t believe that I missed you,” he grumbled.

Dorian donned a mischievous smile at that. Then he approached Krem with his eyes slyly lidded. He flirtatiously tilted Krem’s chin with a knuckle and leaned in next to his ear.

“I missed you, too,” he said, and shoved Krem back into the water.

Krem screamed and toppled with a huge splash for the second time that day. And Dorian was already walking back to camp, chuckling to himself, by the time that he resurfaced.

* * *

Krem turned over the invitation in his hand as he sat on a log bench back at camp. The campfire crackled in front of him, but it was nothing compared to the fire burning inside him.

Florianne was in his sights.

“I’m glad you two were able to catch up while I procured that precious slip of paper,” Dorian sighed as he polished his staff. “You’re lucky I didn’t mind being stuck doing all the hard work.”

Bull was checking the stitches in his side as Dorian talked, and he gave a low grunt in response.

“Try doing it in heels next time,” he retorted. “ _Then_ it’d be hard work.”

“You still haven’t told me where you got it,” Krem said, growing impatient.

Dorian paused and let out a short sigh.

“We’ve been conspiring with Cullen to get a leg up on the grand duchess,” Dorian admitted. “Inquisitor Rutherford had intel that the cabaret would be a hot spot of activity for Florianne’s soldiers. Then it was only a matter of finagling a few members of the Inquisition to spring a trap on them.”

“Dorian pickpocketed it while the two of us were providing a distraction,” Bull said, getting to the point. “Naturally, I was the first person that came to mind when Cullen suggested we deploy a femme fatale spy.”

Krem laughed under his breath.

“ _Naturally_ ,” he scoffed.

“It must be said that Leliana’s spy work is nothing to sneeze at, either,” Dorian continued. “Cullen’s spymaster heard word that the apprentice of Florianne’s tailor would be at the cabaret tonight as well. Of course, it was a gamble of whether or not the apprentice would have the invitation on her person, but we were extremely lucky.”

Krem suddenly straightened in place, not believing his ears.

“Florianne’s tailor?” he echoed. “Antoine Beneventi!”

Krem nearly slapped his own forehead. He couldn’t believe he had forgotten about his close contacts with the royal family.

“Wait, _Beatrice_ was there?” he exclaimed, blatantly horrified. “And you _stole_ from her?!”

“That certainly explains her slack-jawed expression when she saw you with your tongue in Bull’s throat,” Dorian chuckled. “I suppose it’s no wonder I went unnoticed while I was rifling through her handbag.”

Krem hid his face as it turned a humiliated shade of red.

“Maker’s breath, I could have just _talked_ to her,” Krem said, his voice muffled in the palms of his hands. “Beatrice and Antoine are like family to me. All I would’ve had to do was ask, and...”

Krem trailed off with a groan as Bull crossed his arms over his chest.

“The Inquisition also captured a dozen of Florianne’s soldiers,” Bull reminded him. “And now the plan can move forward.”

Krem looked up at them through splayed fingers.

“What plan?” he asked them, exasperated.

“You’re going to show up at the Winter Palace in Beatrice’s place as Florianne’s personal tailor,” Dorian explained. “Cullen will direct you on your mission objectives, but it is very much a mission that only you can accomplish, Krem.”

Krem felt his pulse quicken in his neck, and he looked up at them with new resolve.

“I’ll be within striking distance of the grand duchess,” he realized out loud.

Bull’s expression went stern.

“Then find an opening and strike,” he simply said. “And don’t fucking miss.”


	29. Of First Things First

The early morning air was brisk, and Krem scrubbed his tired face with the palm of his hand as he waited for Bull and Dorian to get their travelling gear packed. He leaned against a large tree a short ways from their tent, trying to get a handle on his own restless thoughts.

After some time, he pinched the bridge of his nose, staving off a sudden, intense migraine.

_Radonis is bastardizing my temple again._

Solas and the Dread Wolf spoke together— sending the message directly to Krem’s spirit.

“I feel it,” Krem softly answered.

_You must act on it when the time is right._

White-hot frustration surged through Krem.

“You think I don’t know that?” he said through gritted teeth. “Tell me something useful, Solas.”

There was a long pause.

_The Iron Bull has your lyrium._

The horrible feeling of his spirit being haunted by activated blood magic passed in a matter of moments, and he swore quietly.

Krem was overtaken by an inexplicable urge to run very fast and far away. But then he heard footsteps approaching.

“ _Avanna_ , Krem,” Dorian greeted him in Tevene. “What are you doing up so early?”

Krem tried to quickly compose himself, not daring to look up from his own boots.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he honestly answered.

Dorian moved in front of him with a curious look.

“You could have woken me,” he said. “I’m not a heavy sleeper.”

Krem nodded, but his thoughts were elsewhere. In particular, something that Inquisitor Vera had told him on that other plane of existence kept playing over again in his mind.

“Dorian,” he started, glancing up. “Do you think I’ve changed?”

A soft glimmer played in Dorian’s eyes.

“You mean other than the ocular prosthesis and being able to shoot lightning at your enemies?”

Krem betrayed a small smile.

“Yeah,” he said. “Other than that.”

Dorian stroked his moustache in thought, then he let out a gentle sigh.

“You’ve been more cautious— more self-aware since you’ve realized your magical potential,” he admitted. “But you’ve also been noticeably scatterbrained.” Then a twitch of frustration flashed on Dorian’s features. “I can’t seem to keep your interest for very long. And it’s been quite a point of contention.”

Krem blinked.

“Contention?” he asked.

“Bull had to do a strip tease in a crowded nightclub to recapture your attention.”

Krem fidgeted in place.

“It was a lap dance,” he clumsily countered.

Dorian’s eyebrow arched.

“Ah, yes,” he teased. “That makes all the difference in the world.”

Krem couldn’t help but shake his head at the utter ridiculousness of the situation.

“Well, I’m back now,” Krem reassured him. “And I appreciate you guys coming back for me.”

Dorian smiled, and all at once, Krem wished he hadn’t left in the first place.

“We were recruited to help you close a rift outside Val Royeaux today,” Dorian said. “That way, it’ll be quick and easy.”

Bull, meanwhile, had collapsed the tent and tacked up the horses. He joined Dorian and Krem in a reserved way, apparently not wanting to interrupt anything private that they might have been in the middle of.

Krem took the opportunity to steal a glance at Bull’s pants pockets. But if the lyrium was hidden in there, he couldn’t tell.

“Is it _ever_ quick and easy?” Krem asked as he distractedly mounted his horse.

“You know what they say,” Dorian told him with a suggestive wink as he spurred his own horse into a walk. “Many hands make light work.”

* * *

Soon after daybreak, Krem was regretting not getting a full night’s sleep. They had crested a large, grassy hill where Cullen was dispatching a couple lesser demons near a small fade rift. And the daunting task ahead of Krem became clear.

“Good morning!” Cullen called out to them as he returned his short sword to its sheath. “It’s good to see you all working as a team again.”

Bull gave Cullen a friendly wave as they hastily tied their horses to a tree next to Cullen’s mount and joined him near the rift. Bull was armed with Krem’s maul while Dorian and Krem opted to rely on their staves for this mission.

Bull continued to catch Cullen up on current events, but Krem was busy preparing himself for what lay ahead for them. He hadn’t practiced his portal work at all the previous night, and the task of sealing a rift seemed just as daunting as ever as he stared up at the thing. It crackled and pulsed with bright green energy just above their heads. And Krem felt his stomach tighten with a sudden wave of anxiety.

But then Dorian put a firm hand on Krem’s shoulder and shook him from his worried thoughts.

“See?” Dorian said. “You’re scatterbrained. Just take a deep breath, Krem.”

Krem did just that, and it helped calm him down more than he had expected.

“Thanks, Dorian,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Krem!” Bull suddenly called out to him. “We need to get going before more demons show up.”

And so Krem took up his staff and climbed the hill with Dorian. He was hoping for the best, but deep down, he dreaded the prospect of failing outright in front of everyone. If anything, Dorian’s partnership and guidance was what gave him a small glimmer of hope.

“Stand back, Inquisitor,” Dorian advised Cullen. “Trying out untested and experimental spells may set off an unexpected magical reaction.”

Cullen nodded and backstepped several paces down the hill, but Bull and Dorian stayed steadfast at Krem’s side. Meanwhile, the Fade rift groaned overhead, ready and willing to unleash more demons upon them.

Bull was right— there was no time to waste.

“You can do this, Krem,” Dorian encouraged him. “Once you start closing it, just stay focused. Just treat it like a door that needs to be shut with your magic. Theoretically, that’s all it should take.”

Krem nodded back at him. He had no reason to doubt Dorian’s expertise. And so Krem widened his stance, held out the end of his staff, and closed his eyes.

‘ _I might need your help with this one, Solas_ ,’ he thought, but there was no response.

Krem bit back his frustration at Solas and directed his magic up his arms and through his staff. The focus glowed a dark, ominous purple— nothing like Inquisitor Vera’s anchor— and his magic burst forth, booming like thunder. Krem’s corrupted magic made contact with the fade in a crackling stream of lightning-infused energy.

‘ _This isn’t what happened when I closed the portal back at Skyhold!_ ’ Krem realized, starting to panic. ‘ _I’m doing it wrong!_ ’

But there was no turning back now.

The rift was overtaken with corrupted magic, turning it into what seemed like a distorted thunderhead. Krem felt himself being pulled forward, his boots dragging across the grass. He heard shouting, but there was too much noise and interference to make anything out. Four hands grabbed onto him, trying to yank him out of the force’s grasp. But Bull and Dorian were only brought along with him.

Krem was launched off of the ground in an instant and all three of them were thrown forward towards the corrupted rift. In just a split second, Krem felt the others holding him tight before they were swallowed up, and then everything went black.


	30. Of Your Own Worst Enemy

Dorian would be terrified if he wasn’t so fascinated.

The Tevinter mage had found himself in a picture-perfect copy of _Fen’harel’s_ main temple— well, almost picture perfect. The sky was an unnatural, sickly shade of green, and the floor was made of a black kind of stone that didn’t match the rest of the architecture.

If he hadn’t been separated from Krem and Bull during the mishap with the rift, he’d stop and smell the flowers. But their safety and well-being was at the top of his priority list.

Dorian walked down a stairway of white stone and spared a glance at a mosaic depicting a large white wolf as he passed it.

Definitely _Fen’harel_.

But why had the rift sent them to this part of the Fade? Surely Krem’s corrupted magic had something to do with it. But so many of the details were up in the air that it did Dorian little good to speculate.

All he dared to hypothesize was that the corruption had reversed the polarity of the rift. And that was only working on the anecdotal evidence of being pulled inside the rift rather than demons being thrown out into Thedas.

The real Thedas; not this surreal imitation.

Dorian absently touched a line of elven script that was etched into one of the walls as he went.

“ _Incredible_ ,” he exclaimed.

What he had read in his books simply paled in comparison to the real thing.

“Dorian.”

The spoken name shot straight through his heart.

Dorian promptly looked ahead and saw a face that he was sure had been lost forever.

A tall, sturdy man with umber skin and dark hair in short twists stood across the way. His arms had the corded muscles of a weaponsmith, and his calloused hands could only belong to someone who had known hard work for their entire life.

The man smiled past a full beard, and Dorian’s knees nearly went to water.

“Darius,” he called out to the man.

The blacksmith stepped forward but stopped just out of Dorian’s reach.

“It’s been a while,” Darius stated. “Five years? Ten? It seems I’ve lost count.”

Dorian frowned, his grip tightening on his staff.

“You were killed by a band of Templars nine years ago,” Dorian said, matter-of-factly. “And you’ve decided to show yourself to me now?”

A flash of irritation flew across Darius’ features.

“Better late than ever, hm?” he asked in dulcet tones.

Darius took another step forward, but Dorian took a cautious step back.

The space between the two of them suddenly went tense.

“I loved you, Darius,” Dorian announced, his voice thick with emotion. “But I’ve moved on. I couldn’t wallow in guilt forever.”

Bitterness twisted Darius’ features, and it made Dorian’s skin crawl.

“ _Moved on_?” Darius spat. “To that Ben-Hassrath Qunari and his little rescue project? They care more about a dead woman than they care about you.”

Dorian was stunned. His jaw dropped in disbelief, hearing those words come from his past lover.

Then a fiery anger took over him.

“It has truly been a blessing… being able to see you again,” Dorian said. “But I’m sorry to say that all dreams must eventually come to an end.”

Dorian slammed the end of his staff onto the ground, and a pillar of flame engulfed Darius in an instant. A ear-piercing screech filled the air, and through the pyre, Dorian could see the illusion fall away and a pleasure demon was vaporized in the man’s place.

After all was said and done, Dorian was left with an aching heart.

But then a marvelous vision came to him.

Krem turned a corner, wincing with each step he took, but still smiling past the pain.

“Holy hell, Dorian,” he said. “You sure know how to pick them.”

Deep down, Dorian wished that Krem hadn’t been able to snoop on his past as it came back to haunt him.

“Darius was much kinder _not_ as a demon,” Dorian said, taking Krem’s remark as sarcasm.

But Krem shook his head.

“I meant that he was very easy on the eyes,” Krem told him. “Well, ‘eye’, in my case.”

Dorian broke into an unexpected smile and rushed forward to embrace him, but Krem hurriedly waved him off.

“Keep your distance,” Krem warned him. “I think there was a—“

Krem’s face suddenly convulsed as a brief shock of electricity overtook him.

“A rebound,” Dorian finished for him.

Krem laughed past the pain.

“From the look of things, you were the one on the rebound, Dorian,” he joked.

Dorian’s mustache twitched, calculating the odds of success in his head. And then, risking it all, he threw himself at Krem. A loud pop of static electricity went off on impact as Dorian wrapped his arms tightly around Krem.

The rest of the misdirected current was harmlessly grounded— through Dorian— and Krem was turned back to normal.

It took Krem a second to realize what had happened. Then he let out a relieved chuckle and hugged him in return.

“A rebounded _spell_ , you dunce,” Dorian lovingly said. “Now save some of that bright-eyed bravery for Bull. I’m sure he’ll need it once we find him.”

* * *

It was easy enough to find the main chamber of Solas’ temple— along with Bull standing at the center of it. But he wasn’t alone.

A Tamassran Qunari was circling him like a predator honing in on its prey. And Bull was at war with himself— shoulders tense and his eye focused somewhere off in the middle distance.

“Stop fighting for this lost cause,” the Tamassran hissed into his ear. “Leave the Inquisition. Give yourself to the re-educators. Regain your rightful place in the Qun.”

“Bull!” Dorian called out. “It’s a demon! Don’t listen to it!”

But Bull didn’t so much as twitch.

They were too late.

Krem swore under his breath and readied himself for a fight. But Dorian looked considerably less eager to attack his _amatus_.

“Maybe we can reason with him,” Dorian told Krem, half-heartedly.

The Tamassran dropped the illusory form and revealed itself to be a Pride demon. It snarled victoriously from behind Bull, and Bull mechanically lowered into an aggressive stance with Krem’s maul in both hands.

“Not happening,” Krem muttered back to Dorian. “Look, you take care of the demon. I’ll knock some sense into Bull.”

A reluctant scowl formed above Dorian’s chin, but he couldn’t argue that it was the best plan available to them.

“This is the real deal, Krem,” Dorian warned. “Don’t go easy on him.”

Krem smirked despite himself.

“I never do,” he said, and kicked off at a run.

Dorian let out a dissatisfied sound and took off in the other direction.

Krem sprinted towards Bull’s flank, weighing strategies and decisions in his head as he went. Then he skidded to a halt in Bull’s blind spot.

“I have to say, I had hoped you were gone for good, Hissrad!” Krem angrily shouted.

Bull’s horned head snapped towards Krem and snarled at him like a common beast.

Krem instinctively lowered into a defensive stance, nervously twirling the staff in his hand. He suddenly and dearly missed the dependable weight of his trusty maul in his grip.

“That’s right, you big idiot,” Krem grumbled. “Come and get it.”

Bull turned to face Krem with his maul raised and ready to charge. Then a barrage of fire attacks caught Krem’s attention from the corner of his eye. Dorian was giving the demon a run for its money, all on his own. The Pride demon staggered backwards with each relentless volley from Dorian’s staff. And Krem couldn’t help but notice Dorian’s fighting form— his hips and thighs moving strongly from side to side in a dangerous rhythm.

Krem shook his head to clear it.

“Andraste’s tits,” he swore under his breath. “Stop being so fucking distracting.”

Then, without any preamble, Bull lowered his horns and charged.

Krem bounced on his feet until the time was right to dodge. Bull raised his maul above his head in an attempt to bring it down on Krem’s head. But Krem leapt back and let the head of Bull’s weapon crash into the ground. Then Krem jumped onto the giant rock and kicked off at a leap. Using the momentum, Krem swung back his staff and slammed it against the side of Bull’s head. The sound of his staff’s focus crashing against Bull’s skull was evidence enough that it had been a solid hit.

Bull staggered to the side with a rumbling groan, one hand cradling his injured noggin.

Krem landed safely and widened his stance as he did during their fight with the ice dragon.

“Here goes nothing,” he said, and unleashed his magical energy.

An arc of black electricity was drawn to Bull’s horns, and Bull seized up on contact with it.

Krem kept up the power for a good three seconds before letting up, and Bull collapsed heavily to the ground.

Only then did Krem let out a sigh of relief.

“It’s no fun fighting you like this,” he muttered. “But you’ll thank me once you’re yourself again.”

Dorian finally dispatched the demon with a wall of fire and joined Krem at Bull’s unresponsive body. Neither of them knew what to say.

“Let’s get out of here,” Krem finally decided.

“You’re just chock full of good ideas today,” Dorian quipped. “I’m really starting to like Fade Krem.”

Krem felt better at that.

“Must be my gritty stubble and deep, sexy voice,” he teased Dorian.

Dorian chuckled.

“You’re not wrong,” he replied.

* * *

Cullen had returned to Val Royeaux for reinforcements once Bull, Dorian, and Krem disappeared into the Fade. A team of five other Inquisition soldiers joined Cullen on the hill to help in any way they could. But all they could do was wait for further developments.

After almost an hour, the Fade reacted to some unseen magic, and Cullen prepared his troops.

The rift groaned louder and louder until its captives materialized on the grassy knoll. Krem scrambled to his feet, staff in hand, and tried to close it again. This time around, the demons were gone and the magic worked as intended. He made a dynamic motion with his staff— as he’d seen Inquisitor Vera do a dozen times— and the rift exploded into nothing. But doing so sapped Krem of all the energy in him, and he dropped gracelessly to his hands and knees.

Cullen immediately called out to him. And his soldiers hurried to check on Bull and Dorian while he knelt beside Krem.

“Krem, how are you feeling?” Cullen asked, nearly at a loss for words.

Krem swayed unsteadily.

“Not great,” he managed to weakly croak before crumpling in an unresponsive heap.


	31. Of Close-Knit Friends

Hours passed in peaceful, dreamless sleep until Krem finally regained consciousness. The high chantry ceilings came into view above him but no light shone through the large stained glass windows in them.

It was the middle of the night.

The faint smell of lit candles surrounded him as he half heartedly turned his head to the side. And just as she had been in Kirkwall, Leliana was waiting for him in a nearby chair with a clipboard and quill in her lap.

Krem groaned and draped an arm over his face.

“We have to stop meeting like this, Spymaster,” he grumbled.

“Then do better,” Leliana said, humorlessly.

Leliana’s quill began scratching away at a piece of parchment as Krem dragged himself into a sitting position on the cot.

“If I leave this room right now, will you try to stop me?” he asked, testing the waters.

Leliana immediately reached behind her, as if waiting for the question to be asked, and dropped a small bag of coins onto the bed.

“That’s your payment for closing the rift,” she said. “I was going to give you an invitation to the Winter Palace, but we both know that you beat me to the punch.”

Krem just raised a curious eyebrow at her.

“There’s another payment— twice as big— if you stay and let me debrief you,” she nonchalantly finished. “Take it or leave it.”

It was an easy enough decision to make, and Krem settled in for the interrogation to come.

“What do you want to know?” he asked.

* * *

After giving Leliana a dozen half-truths about what had happened in the Fade and a couple more half-promises about his future prospects with Cullen’s new Inquisition, Krem left the makeshift infirmary with his cloak pocket heavy with gold.

But his job opportunity as an Inquisition Rift-Closer had been revoked until he proved that his magic wouldn’t corrupt any more tears in the Fade… and that he wouldn’t go unconscious for twelve straight hours afterwards.

Krem decided it was for the best.

The room that he exited into was an office with enough personal belongings on the desk for Krem to recognize it as Josephine’s work space. The only occupants in the room now were Bull and Dorian— sleeping together on a large couch.

Bull was softly snoring on his back with one arm reaching the floor and the other draped over the back of the couch. Dorian was quietly snoozing on top of him with his cheek pillowed by Bull’s chest. And the homemade blanket that Krem had salvaged from Skyhold’s ruins was haphazardly draped over their legs.

Krem was drawn to inspect Bull’s pants pocket again. He moved to stand over them, and it occurred to him that this was the second chance that he had been given to see if Solas was telling the truth about the lyrium that had entranced him.

With his heart thumping hard against his chest, Krem leaned down and simply pulled the blanket up to cover Dorian and Bull. And once he was sure that he hadn’t woken them up, he tore away his gaze and stepped lightly towards the door.

‘ _If he does have it, then it’s safe with him_ ,’ Krem reassured himself. ‘ _I don’t even need it, anyway_.’

Krem had promised Bull that nothing would come between them on that balcony— that they had to trust each other unconditionally— and he intended to stand by that promise.

* * *

Keeping to the shadows and glancing over his shoulder as he went, Krem snuck away to Beneventi’s Boutique and Clothing Emporium. He urgently knocked on the heavy entrance door until it cracked open and revealed a pale young woman with short, strawberry blonde hair. She looked back at him with an astonished expression.

“It _was_ you!” she gasped in a thick Orlesian accent and yanked Krem inside by the wrist.

The door snapped shut behind him, and Krem slowly lowered the hood of his robes.

“Close the curtains,” he hastily told her. “All of them.”

Without hesitation, the woman dashed to make sure that the shop’s tall windows were sufficiently covered. Then she took in Krem’s odd appearance with a hard look in her eyes.

“I _knew_ it! You were at the cabaret!” she said, shrill and accusing. “I swear to the Maker, Krem! If you were two-timing some poor, sweet girl with an ox-man in a dress—!”

“You were there, too, Bea,” he deflected, exasperated. “What about that librarian? Claire? What would she think?”

Beatrice shook her head as if trying to wake herself from a crazy dream.

“That was _four years_ ago,” she said, her heartbreak plain and unhidden. “I’ve been on my own for four years, Krem.”

Krem bit his tongue at that. Time had gotten away from him again.

“And you lost an _eye_?” Beatrice exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “What, did you take a horn to the face during one of your Qunari sexcapades?”

Krem just scowled back at her, but Beatrice didn’t stop there.

“Well, why the hell are you wearing mage’s robes, then? You told me you were a soporati!” Her hands suddenly furled into tight fists. “And more importantly, why aren’t you _dead_?!”

Beatrice’s voice broke on the last word, her emerald-green eyes brimming with angry tears.

The wind went out of Krem’s sails at that, and he looked down guiltily at his feet. He had a hell of a lot of explaining to do. But where to even begin?

“A little over a week ago I read the news that you had become the Inquisitor’s knight-captain, and the next thing I heard was she was dead and that Skyhold was destroyed,” she told him, her voice shaking. “What was I supposed to think? That you’d run from a fight? That you’d saved yourself?” She shook her head again. “I would have bet the shop that you were dead, too.”

Krem hesitantly opened his mouth to try and respond, but before he could, a hard knock came at the door.

“City guard!” The voice behind the door was loud and demanding. “Open up!”

Sent into a sudden panic, Krem snapped his chin towards Beatrice, trying to convey a plea of help without putting it to words.

After a beat, Beatrice motioned for him to hide, and Krem readily obliged. He ducked behind the front counter of the shop— just off to the side— but kept an ear out just in case things went badly. The door slowly creaked open and Krem silently sent up a prayer to any god who would listen.

“Good evening, miss,” said the guard with a shiny veneer of professionalism. “I heard a commotion as I passed by your shop. Is everything alright?”

Beatrice made a show of sniffling and wiping at her face.

“My striker is a no-show and I have a skiffle due by tomorrow morning!” she said, expertly spinning the lie like a thread. “This project is worth seven hundred sovereigns! If you could just help me finish with this interlining—!”

“P- Please, miss!” the guard dumbly stuttered. “That’s not what I—!”

“Oh, but sir! If you could just assist me with my work for four or five hours,” Beatrice went on. “I could maybe, possibly get it done on—!”

But the guard slammed the door shut, and Krem could hear the clacking of his boots quickly disappear down the street.

Krem climbed out from under the large counter and saw that Beatrice was dealing with a great deal of frustration. She glared at him with tear stains on her cheeks and waited for him— or perhaps dared him— to say something.

“I’ll tell you everything,” Krem said. “But you have to promise to wait until I’m finished before you start yelling at me.”


End file.
